


Saṃsāra

by Ely_Baby



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adventure, Buddhism, Community: fandomaid, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-08 19:26:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 43,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6870409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ely_Baby/pseuds/Ely_Baby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three unlikely people find themselves on the same path to understanding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Savitarka

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alisanne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alisanne/gifts).



> Written for the lovely and absurdly patient [](https://alisanne.livejournal.com)[alisanne](https://alisanne.livejournal.com), who asked for either Draco/Ginny or Harry/Astoria. I love my Weasleys, so I _had to_ go with Draco/Ginny.
> 
> Since this story was written for the fundraising for Nepal, I wanted to set it in Nepal to pay homage to the country and its beauty. I have never been there and I speak no Nepali, but I did my fair share of research and I hope that my representation of that beautiful place is, at the very least, not terribly ridiculous. This is a story in five parts and every part is titled after one of the Five Stages of Meditation, while the quotes are taken from Buddha's teachings. I've chosen to write this in the present tense because Buddhism teaches us the importance of living in the present.
> 
> I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it, [](https://alisanne.livejournal.com)[alisanne](https://alisanne.livejournal.com).
> 
> I have to thank my wonderful alpha-reader, [](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/5784619/Alice-Helena)[Alice Helena](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/5784619/Alice-Helena), and my beta-reader, the lovely [](https://realanise.livejournal.com)[realanise](https://realanise.livejournal.com), for their invaluable help. Any remaining mistake is solely mine.

_ _

_ _

London. Paris. Bucharest. Tehran. Kabul. New Delhi. Kathmandu.

Draco can’t remember having been in so many cities in less two days ever before. He can’t remember ever wishing to do anything like that either.

There’s a stinging headache threatening to bloom in his temples; his hands are tender from grasping his broomstick on the long flight from Europe to Asia; his stomach has churned so many times while touching Portkey after Portkey that he’s had difficulties keeping down their last meal for the whole day.

But he’s not going to complain. If Ginny Potter is not going to complain, he isn’t either. And even if she was complaining, Draco wouldn’t be, because their other companion, the old Lovegood, looks like he’s on a school trip, excited and chatty; he keeps looking around himself as if he’s having the time of his life.

As if they’re not all there for the worst task that they’ve probably ever had the misfortune to undertake.

“Mrs Potter.” The man who welcomes them at the Ministry of Magic of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal is short and dressed in red, cheeks battered by the sun and skin peeling from his nose like the paint off an old wall.

“Mr Shrestha,” Potter replies, and Draco can’t help noticing that that’s probably the first time he’s heard her voice since they left London.

The Minister for Magic greets Draco and Lovegood as well; his hands are calloused and warm, but he almost doesn’t look at them when he shakes theirs. Draco can’t help feeling bothered by the dismissive behaviour of the Minister, but he’s too exhausted to complain.

They’re guided through some small corridors decorated with colourful flags and pictures of the Himalayas until they reach an office where they’re offered tea and some dodgy looking sweets. Draco sips the tea and refuses the sweets.

“I don’t think I have to remind you that you don’t have jurisdiction in this country,” says the Minister placidly, his accent thick.

Potter presses her lips together. “We don’t have jurisdiction in England either,” she replies dryly. “That’s why I am here while my husband is back at home.”

The Minister nods slowly before opening a drawer and sliding out a small file. “They were last seen a month ago,” he says straight away, “in the Solukhumbu District.” He opens the file and skims through it, almost bored. “They checked in to a guesthouse in Gorakshep, eight days before their disappearance. According to the man who runs the place, they used it as their base for nearby excursions.” He looks at Potter, expression grave. “According to him, they wanted to move higher, over 20,000 feet.” He tilts his head from one side to the other. “According to him, they were looking for the _himamānav_.” His nostrils flare. “The Yeti.”

Draco closes his eyes for a brief moment, feeling suddenly cold and uneasy, he flexes his fingers spasmodically around the cup in his hands.

“I know,” says Potter firmly and when Draco opens his eyes again she’s looking at the Minister with a dark expression on her face.

“Hunting the _himamānav_ is forbidden,” states the Minister curtly, “our Mountains protect their creatures.”

“They aren’t hunting it!” protests Potter. “They’re studying it!” And Draco can’t help wincing at the use of the present tense.

The Minister keeps his expression calm. “Mrs Potter,” he says quietly, “you know why you’re here, right?”

She swallows but raises her chin up in the air and Draco can’t help looking at her and wishing that he had an ounce of her determination. “To find our children.”

“Their bodies,” corrects the Minister, “and identify them.”

“Don’t say that,” she snaps. “They’re not dead.”

“Of course they’re not dead,” Lovegood chirps, his voice as cheerful as if they’re talking about cake. “My Luna said they’d all be home this summer for Dirigible Plum picking; she loves them so much and Lorcan and Lysander, too, you know.”

Potter turns to look at him; her determined expression quivers for a bit before a small, tired smile appears on her lips. “Exactly, Xenophilius,” she says weakly, as if he is a child and she feels the urge to agree with everything he says just to keep him happy.

He does look happy when Draco glances at his pale face, but then suddenly he looks very interested in the Nepalese sweets and seems to get lost in thought again.

The Minister glances at Lovegood as if he thinks this one escaped from the Nepalese equivalent of the Janus Thickey Ward, then looks back at Potter. “A search party was sent to try to locate them,” he goes on.

“I know,” replies Potter thickly. “You didn’t find anything. You looked in the wrong places.”

The Minister shakes his head. “We found something,” he replies, looking down at the file again. “Four wands, six sleeping bags, four quartered backpacks with most of their content lost, three jackets.” He pauses for a second before looking up. “And blood.”

Potter is shaking her head furiously now, looking dangerously on the verge of a breakdown. She has looked so composed and calm for the whole journey, and Draco couldn’t explain how she could keep herself so cool until that very moment. She thinks they’re still alive, she really does.

He feels the urge to say something, because Potter seems unable to contribute any time soon, and Lovegood is better if he’s kept silent. Draco clears his throat, but the Minister beats him to it.

“They left your children’s belongings at the guesthouse,” he says. “The Sherpas involved in the search party sent an owl with a detailed description of what they found, but were unable to send the items themselves.”

“How could they leave their things in the care of Muggles?” growls Draco suddenly, his voice throaty. “They’re going to sell them because they don’t know what they are! Throw them away! Ruin them!” He feels a strange, suffocating anger smother him. Those are his son’s belongings they’re talking about. Do they even understand what they mean to him?

“We didn’t, Mr Malfoy.” The Minister is still calm despite the two British people that have just snapped at him. “The man who runs the guesthouse is a wizard, and so were the Sherpas involved in the search. We wouldn’t dream of involving the Muggles where the _himamānav_ is concerned. They’ve done enough damage in the past.”

Draco opens his mouth to retort something, but nothing comes to mind. The Minister is more concerned with a fantastic beast rather than six British citizens who have been killed in their mountains, and Draco feels a surge of hatred for that calm and collected man.

“We,” starts Potter, her voice cold and calm once more, “are going to look for them ourselves.”

The Minister nods slowly. “You will need a trekking permit for the Himalayas,” he says, opening an inkbottle and dunking a quill in it. “Food, trekking equipment, a map, maybe a Sherpa to lead you through the most difficult passages, camping e—”

“All we need is a set of Portkeys,” Draco interrupts him, his voice nervous, “that will bring us to this guesthouse.”

The Minister looks from Potter to him, an eyebrow cocked. “Portkeys don’t work in the Himalayas,” he states. “The configuration of the region is such that the high mountains won’t allow for the wide-ranging magic needed to make a Portkey effective.”

“So?” asks Draco harshly. “What are you saying? That we have to climb our way to the peaks on foot?”

The Minister nods, slowly again, as if he is talking to someone who doesn’t understand English that well. “You can get a Portkey to Lukla,” he says. “That’s the highest point where they work.”

“Thank you, yes,” says Potter quickly. “We’d like to book a Portkey for tonight, as well as all the necessary for a successful trek. We’ve got money.”

The Minister shakes his head. “We need to issue you a trekking permit first,” he states. “It’ll be ready by tomorrow at five in the morning. In the meantime, we’ve booked you three rooms at the Khyāh Inn for tonight.” He finally closes the file and hands over the list to Potter. “You’ll find all the necessary for a successful trek at the inn. A Ministry employee will wake you up at four tomorrow. Please, do check that you have everything I wrote on that list and in case you find that something is missing let the employee know.”

Potter nods, her eyes trained on the list.

“Mrs Potter…”

She looks at the Minister, her face a mask of alabaster. She probably doesn’t want to hear anything, but luckily the Minister seems to know what to say. “Good luck,” he murmurs, standing up.

They stand, too, Potter and Draco; he has to tap Lovegood on his shoulder to make him aware that the conversation is over and they’re going to have dinner – hopefully – and then they’re off to bed.

They shake the Minister’s hand. Lovegood attempts to hug him, too, but Potter drags him away, taking his hand and securing it between her arm and her side. They’re ushered to the main door, where a short wizard guides them outside and then through cold side streets that smell of spices and cows.

For the first time since they have been hauled into that city one hour before, Draco manages to get a good glimpse of it. Even though the sun is setting, even though the walls of the houses around him are tall and dirty, even though he doesn’t want to look at anything at all. He can’t help himself.

The city seems to be painted with hundreds of shades of maroon and brown and ochre. The streets open on squares and the squares are surrounded by temples. People hurry past, cows clog corners, peddlers scream the names of the crap they sell in a language Draco doesn’t understand.

Everything seems so foreign and different that for a moment Draco thinks it’s all a dream. Yes, come morning he will wake up in his bed at the Manor, with Astoria still asleep by his side, and Scorpius still alive and having breakfast downstairs before his shift at St Mungo’s starts.

He blinks as he is roughly pushed through the battered door of a shack, only it’s not a shack, it’s their inn, the Khyāh Inn. The acre smell of sheepskin and something that Draco hopes is not going to be their dinner saturates the air.

They’re escorted to their rooms, under the curious gaze of Nepalese and foreign wizards and witches. Some of them are there on holiday, though Draco can’t think why.

Potter is given the chamber closest to the bathroom, but she lets Lovegood have it instead. She gets the room next to Draco and disappears inside without even looking at him.

Draco pushes his own door open and walks inside. The chamber is dimly lit, smells of old covers, and doesn’t look that clean to him. He takes a deep breath and closes the door at his back before inspecting the place. There’s a chest of drawers, a bed, and a bedside table. The window is closed and he can’t be bothered to open it; he doesn’t care what lies beyond it. Probably just another wall.

There’s a knock on the door and, before he can even turn, steps echo inside the room and then the door closes again.

“Do you have everything?” asks Potter, her voice steady and hard as a rock.

He turns to look at her. She’s standing there enveloped in a colourful jumper and with a pair of slightly torn jeans. Is that Muggle fashion? It’s ridiculous. “I don’t have anything,” he replies.

She rolls her eyes and draws out her wand. In a moment the room is properly lit by a dozen candles. “You have to check, Malfoy,” she says, her voice annoyed as she makes her way towards the other side of his bed and picks up something from the floor. She puts it on the bed, and Draco finally sees that it’s a backpack.

“Check,” she commands, standing up and taking out the same list that she has been given by the Minister. “Trekking equipment, sleeping bag, camping equipment, food, water bottle, walk—”

“I haven’t even opened it, Weasley,” he snaps, walking towards the bed.

“It’s Potter,” she snaps back, glaring at him over the list.

He knows, he’d just wanted to annoy her. He feels like an idiot for doing it at this moment, but she’d waltzed into his room, barking orders, and he knows she’s nervous, but he is, too. His son is dead, for crying out loud.

He huffs and finally fumbles with the backpack. “Trekking equipment,” he repeats dryly as he draws out some ridiculous-looking mountain clothes and shoes, “sleeping bag, camping equipment, food, walking stick.”

“No water bottle?” she asks anxiously.

He pushes his hand deep inside and searches, until his fingers touch something cold. “Yeah, it’s here,” he says, taking it out.

She sighs in relief. “Good. I’ll check on Xenophilius, then we should have dinner and turn in, we’re waking up at four in the morning tomorrow.”

“I know, I was there, too,” he lets her know curtly.

She folds the list and gives him a jerky nod before she turns away and walks towards the door once more.

“You don’t really think they’re alive, do you?” He can’t resist asking. He should keep quiet, he knows that. The last thing he wants is for her to start crying in his room and him having to comfort her.

She stops and turns her head a bit; he can see she’s biting down hard on her bottom lip, as if to stop it quivering. Finally, she turns to face him. “Of course they’re alive,” she hisses. “Why else would we be here?”

_To identify their bodies_ , he wants to say, but the words die on his lips and he just nods.

She doesn’t nod back, just turns away from him and walks out of the room. The door slams with so much force that the water bottle falls to the floor with a loud thud.

Draco is still awake at four in the morning. The knock from the employee comes as a relief, since he can finally get up from the bed and leave that reeking place. He folds his clothes meticulously and places them at the bottom of his backpack, then he dons the trekking equipment. He doesn’t know how to wear most of the things he has been given, but he’s going to wear them all wrong rather than let Potter know that he needs her assistance.

He stuffs his backpack with all the things he found inside the night before and he’s surprised at how light it feels when he puts it on his back.

His stomach rumbles. He’d refused dinner the night before, put off by the dodgy-looking soups and the disgusting curries. Potter had hissed at him to eat, surely afraid that he would have a fainting spell the following day and slow down their ascent, but he’d hissed back to mind her own business and stormed out of the dining room.

Breakfast isn’t much better, but he’s starving and feels dizzy now, so he sits opposite Potter and is glad that Lovegood is scribbling in a little notebook.

“Eat something,” she says, probably using the same tone that she uses for her children. “You need to have enough energy to trek until this evening.”

He shoots her a glare and pours himself something that looks like porridge. He tries to cover it with something that looks like honey, but when he grabs the first bite he discovers they are neither.

He swallows with great difficulty. The taste isn’t bad, but he doesn’t like not knowing what he’s eating. “What time are we arriving at the guesthouse?” he asks as he tries to swallow more of that concoction.

Potter looks at him, her face unperturbed. She looks like she’s trying to decide whether he’s serious or not. She licks the remnants of the non-porridge from her lips before talking. “In a week, Malfoy,” she replies calmly.

He feels his jaw actually slacken at that piece of information. “Beg your pardon?” he rasps out.

She searches in her backpack, draws out a map of the Himalayan treks, and lays it on the table, turning it around for him. “We’ll get a Portkey to Lukla,” she explains, tapping her finger on a spot she has circled before sliding all the way up to a small village in the middle of nowhere. “And we need to get to Gorakshep where the guesthouse is.”

“And we can’t do that in a day?” he asks, narrowing his eyes.

“Suit yourself,” she replies coldly. “It’s more than a 13,000 foot drop.”

His nostrils flare. “We could use brooms.”

“At that altitude? You’d faint and fall,” she informs him. “Trekking is the fastest and safest way to get there.”

“How is it the fastest way to get there when we have to drag…” He nods jerkily towards Lovegood’s bent head. “With us?”

Potter raises her head until her chin is almost at his eye level. “We’re not going to leave him behind,” she says tersely, and pauses a moment before standing up and nodding at his breakfast. “Finish up, we’re leaving in fifteen minutes.”

After breakfast, the Ministry employee takes them to their Portkey - a broken cup the colour of the dirty walls of that city - bids them goodbye and good luck, and then disappears back inside the inn.

“It activates at five o’clock,” announces Potter, and they are all touching it at four fifty-nine. At five, Draco starts to feel the stomach-churning sucking sensation and, before he can brace himself, he is gasping on the muddy ground of some pigsty. He gulps down air and it’s cold and smelly and different from the air he has breathed all his life. It feels more rarefied, as if he needs more oxygen to breathe and can’t find it around him.

Potter is already standing up next to him; she Scourgifies herself and helps Lovegood to his feet.

“Marvellous,” chirps Lovegood. “A smooth and warm landing. Our journey is definitely starting off on the right foot, isn't it, Ginny dear?”

“Yes, Xenophilius,” replies Potter, a weary smile on her lips. “Let me help you clean up a little. Stand still. _Scourgify_. There you go. Have you put on your socks? Are you warm enough in that? It’s going to get colder and colder as we ascend.”

“Oh, yes,” he replies, nodding knowingly. “We’re definitely going to encounter snow before we get to Gorakshep.”

Potter nods back, then looks at Draco. “Are you going to stay there all day?” she asks frostily. “We need to go.”

Draco blinks at her words. He is still crouched in the mud, his trekking clothes are chafing his skin, and he doesn’t seem able to breathe properly. For a moment, he is tempted to tell her to go without him, he’ll find a way, he’ll pay someone to bring back his son’s body, and her daughter’s, too, if she wants, and the bodies of Loony Lovegood and her family. He’s rich; money buys anything.

But he’d promised Astoria. He will bring Scorpius’ body back himself. He owes that to his son.

He pushes his hands in the mud and stands up, searching for his wand in one of the many pockets of his clothes.

“ _Scourgify_.”

He jerks his head towards Potter, who is pushing her wand in her pocket and drawing out the map.

“I don’t need your help,” he grits through his teeth.

“A thank you is fine,” she replies without even looking up at him. “We need to go. Our first stop is Phakding, and if we keep a steady pace and don’t stop too often along the path we should arrive at our lodge early this afternoon.” 

“Early this afternoon? Why don’t we continue to the next one, then?” growls Draco as they make their way out of the pigsty and onto an uneven village street. “It might have escaped you, Weasley, but this is not a pleasure trip.”

She stops and turns to look at him, her eyes ablaze. “It’s Potter,” she spits, “and we can’t continue to the next stop because we need to acclimatise ourselves to the altitude and the air.” She narrows her eyes as she looks at him. “Don’t worry, Malfoy, the fact that you’re here reminds me constantly that this is not a pleasure trip.”

He narrows his eyes, too, but Lovegood places one of his wrinkly hands on Potter’s shoulder and draws her away, starting to chat about the yakows and what spectacular animals they are, and too bad they have put Extension Charms on their backpacks, because he wouldn’t have minded having one for their luggage.

Draco follows them in silence, kicking little stones out of his path like a pouty child.

It’s six o’clock in the morning and the air is so cold it hurts.

They walk for hours, through forests, past tiny streams that come from the melted snow, over suspended bridges. Lovegood chats all the time and jumps from left to right, pointing out that colourful moth or that herd of yakows. He greets all the people they encounter on their path, wizards and Muggles alike, commenting on their Muggle devices so loudly that Potter has to shush him and drag him away more than once.

They stop in all the tiny villages they find on their path, to drink the sweet lemon tea and use the foul-smelling toilets that have Draco missing his own bathrooms at the Manor.

He has to admit – to himself – that the view is spectacular, though. Distant mountains are visible over the trees, green valleys surround them, the sky is impossibly blue, and he can’t help thinking about Scorpius and the fact that he saw the same landscape a few weeks before.

Draco wonders what Scorpius thought of it all, wonders if his son thought about his father, and how unlikely it was that Draco would ever see these sights himself. He wonders if at any point of his expedition Scorpius stopped and decided that it wasn’t worth it, that his company was too peculiar and the trekking too difficult for him. He wonders if at any point Scorpius wanted to come home. To his parents, the Manor, his job at St Mungo’s.

When they stop in front of a tall pile of Prayer Stones, Draco shakes his head to send those thoughts away.

“We should write something, too. Some prayer or something…” says Potter, her voice, for the first time since they’ve left London, quivering a little. “Shouldn’t we?”

“I’m afraid that’s not how it works, Ginny dear,” chuckles Lovegood. “But we can walk around them, from left to right. Yes, following the direction in which the earth revolves.”

Draco stops to look at them as they walk around the imposing pile of stones. They do it three times; Potter insists and Lovegood indulges her, even when he tells her that once is enough for all of them.

“You should do it, too,” she says frantically, looking at Draco. “Don’t you want to find your son?” She seems on the verge of tears.

Draco can’t explain why, though, since she hasn’t talked almost all day, only with Lovegood, and only one-word-replies to his excited rants. Probably it’s that. Probably she’s been thinking about her daughter all day. Probably realisation is hitting her already. Draco doesn’t know if he should feel relieved that she’s finally losing her grip on her denial or worried that she might start crying and go on for the whole week.

He knows he should keep the peace.

He’s never been good at that, though.

“They’re dead,” he replies darkly, fumbling with the uncomfortable straps of the backpack. “What difference does it make?”

“They’re not dead!” she insists, jaw clenched. “They’re lost somewhere.”

“Lost somewhere for a week without food and their wands,” he replies, looking at the mountains ahead of them; suddenly they don’t look quite as beautiful as before, suddenly they look very intimidating. “If the Yeti didn’t kill them, they froze to death.”

“Take that back.” Her voice is dangerously low, and when he looks at her, she has her wand pointed at him. “Take what you said back.”

He just stares back at her, resolute. He’s not going to take the truth back; after all, the sooner she comes to terms with it, the better. Yes, he’s ready to hear her cry until they’re back in England rather than listen to that nonsense.

“Ginny dear, let’s keep moving; I cannot wait to get to Phakding,” says Lovegood, grabbing her arm and tugging gently. “There’s a tiny Monastery that I have to visit.”

“I’m not going to visit anything,” protests Draco through gritted teeth.

“Nobody is asking you to come with us in this journey,” snaps Potter, her eyes narrowed as she looks at him.

“Good,” he replies.

When she turns away from him and walks ahead with Lovegood, Draco can hear her uncertain voice. “They’re not dead, they’re not dead…”

“Of course they aren’t.” Lovegood’s tone is cheerful. “You wait and see, Ginny dear. You wait and see.”

Phakding is small, somehow even smaller than Lukla. Draco is dropped off at their lodge like a suitcase, while Potter and Lovegood do the short walk to the Thaktul Monastery. Lovegood is particularly excited about it, and Draco doesn’t pay him any mind. He’s just happy they’re both going and leaving him in peace. He asks for a Butterbeer, but in this land it’s not an ordinary drink, apparently. He is given more lemon tea and he sits in his room, sipping from his cup and looking at the mountains from the window.

Potter and Lovegood don’t make an appearance until dinner time. Potter is silent and she looks tired; Lovegood is so excited that he has to show Draco all the things he has found at the Monastery.

Draco stares at Lovegood’s stones and powders and phials without listening to him.

When they turn in – all in the same room this time – it’s only eight.

“It’s going to be a hard day, today,” states Potter dryly. “The road is going to be steep and we have more than 2,600 feet to climb to get to Namche Bazaar.”

Draco looks up from his breakfast. It’s no fake porridge this time; apparently it’s the typical Nepalese breakfast. Soup, fruit salad, fried bread, and milk tea. He doesn’t know if it’s because he’s tired and hungry, but everything seems to taste delicious this morning. “I assume that’s to be our next stop,” he says calmly.

She nods back at him without looking up from her map. “Yes,” she replies. “We should arrive later this afternoon. And no, we cannot continue to the next stop before evening.”

“I wasn’t going to suggest that,” grumbles Draco.

“We should stop for a day,” says Lovegood. His hands, greasy from the fried bread, are leaving fingertips all over his old copy of _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_. “To acclimatise,” he goes on cheerfully, “and there are many little shops that sell traditional ingredients for potions and concoctions, and a museum nearby that we can visit. And I bet my hat that we can see an Occamy today.”

“A what?” grunts Draco.

Lovegood looks at him and beams, properly beams, at the prospect of telling him everything about Occamies. “It’s a two-legged winged creature with a serpentine body that may reach a length of fifteen feet,” he explains. “It’s slightly aggressive, but only when it has eggs to defend—eggs which are made of pure silver. It’s usually found in India, but I bet some specimens can be found here, too; apparently the Occamy loves high mountains, and this is the perfect habitat for it.”

Draco darkens slightly. He certainly hadn’t asked for the lesson on the creature and he hasn’t enjoyed it either.

“What does it eat?” asks Potter. “Is it dangerous?”

Lovegood shrugs a shoulder dismissively. “Rats, small mammals, the occasional monkey…”

“Lovely,” mutters Draco. “We’re not stopping for a day,” he says coldly to Lovegood. “We’re not on a holiday.”

“I’m sorry, Xenophilius, but Malfoy is right,” says Potter. Draco looks at her. It feels strange to hear her agree with him. “We’ll stop on the way back,” she suggests, a small, unsure smile stretching her lips. “I’m sure… I’m sure Luna and the boys would love to stop, too.”

Lovegood’s grin is joyous. “That’s a marvellous idea, Ginny dear,” he says. “My Luna will love to stop there again, and Lorcan, too, you know, he loves to look for new species, much more than his brother.”

Draco feels the urge to tell them that corpses can’t look for new species, but doesn’t want to start another day with a quarrel. He keeps silent and keeps staring at them over his breakfast.

“Sweet,” Ginny replies softly, with a tired smile.

Lovegood’s grin becomes even wider. “And your Lily Pad, too,” he says. “Luna always writes pages and pages about her and how much she likes exploring and trying to pet the most dangerous animals. She’s a brave one, just like her mummy.”

Potter smiles again, but doesn’t reply; she sips her tea and for a moment her eyes seem to fog with something undecipherable.

“Scorpius, too,” says Lovegood suddenly. “Luna says that he loves the outdoors. She says that he was a bit concerned about his ability to keep up with them at the beginning, but he’s become quite the adventurer.”

Draco presses his lips together until they’re almost hurting him. Scorpius has never written to him, not once since he’d left for this expedition. Not to tell him and Astoria that they had reached Nepal safely or to inform his father of any of his discoveries.

“Scorpius was… very good,” says Draco darkly, “with everything he did.”

“He is,” Potter corrects him anxiously, “he is.”

Draco shakes his head, but he doesn’t reply.

Potter’s prediction turns true: the trek that day _is_ hard. The air feels even colder and more rarefied than the day before, and the climb is steep most of the time. The layers of clothes are coarse against his skin, and his feet start to hurt him two hours out from Phakding. Draco hooks his thumbs under the straps of his backpack and tries not to think about anything but putting one foot in front of the other. 

He’s constantly the one at the rear of their little expedition, but he’s happy about that. It means his companions don’t have to see his disconcerted expression or the pained face he pulls every time he twists his ankle or stumbles over some rock.

Potter walks steadily ahead of him. She’s the one who decides when to stop, when to eat the lunch that they packed that morning, and when to refill their water bottles. She’s never following her own desires, though: she’s always asking Lovegood how he feels, if he’s tired, if he wants to stop, if he’s thirsty or hungry.

They stop to rest for five minutes before passing a suspended bridge, and Lovegood wanders off in the forest because he claims he saw something silvery, shining amongst the bushes.

“You need to rest, Xenophilius,” Potter calls after him, but he’s already gone. Sometimes, he looks like a child, and he’s definitely as stubborn as one.

Potter sits on a square rock and takes out her water bottle, gulping down water and catching her breath.

“How are you?” Her tone is unexpectedly even. Draco looks at her and he's surprised to see that she's staring at him. Her freckled nose is a bit burnt by the unforgiving sun of the Himalayas.

“Good,” he replies stiffly, wiping the sweat off his brow. “You?”

She nods back, but doesn’t speak, and Draco finds himself yearning for some more conversation after having kept quiet for almost the whole day.

“Tired?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she replies.

He nods. “We’re almost there, aren’t we?”

“Yeah,” she replies again. “We should reach the Beyul Khumbu Park after that bridge. Then it’s only a couple of hours to Namche.” She looks at the place they’d last seen Lovegood. “I hope there are no monasteries to see,” she sighs softly.

Draco glances at the forest, too, before turning back to look at her. “I’ll go with him,” he says before he can stop himself. “You’re tired, you should rest.”

She shakes her head and smiles wearily. “It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not fine,” he says more harshly than he has intended. “You’re our navigator, I don’t want you to be too tired to look at the route properly and maybe get us lost.”

She stares at him, probably trying to understand if that’s an excuse to mask his act of gentleness. “He wants to do some shopping in the village,” she says. “It’s probably going to take him hours.”

“I’ll give him one and a half,” he announces, “then I’ll leave him in the village.”

She doesn’t believe him, and her smile is grateful this time. “Thank you.”

He nods curtly, then Lovegood finally comes back, and they resume their trek without any further exchange until they reach the Beyul Khumbu Park. There’s a sign there that states that it’s a sacred place to the Sherpa people. And visitors are encouraged to refrain from taking life, refrain from anger, refrain from jealousy, refrain from offending others, and refrain from taking excessive intoxicants.

Potter taps the first two points on the list and elbows Draco discreetly in his ribs. “Remember these when you go with Xenophilius,” she whispers before winking and walking ahead of him again.

Namche Bazaar is far bigger than Draco had expected. It has many lodges, cafés, bars, and more shops crammed one next to the other than Draco thinks there should be in a village up the mountains.

If he cared about these things, he would also notice that the prices are three times as much as those in Kathmandu, but he doesn’t care about these things. Especially not there, since all he’s going to buy is food and secure himself a bed in a triple room along with Potter and Lovegood.

The streets are small and crowded with trekkers acclimatising themselves to the altitude and Sherpas who have lived there all their lives. Draco follows Lovegood around as he goes from shop to shop. Luckily, he is tall and dressed in bright yellow and blue colours, and his long white hair makes him terribly spottable, otherwise Draco would have already lost him.

Lovegood is surprisingly fast and still full of energies. Draco has no idea how that can be, but he suspects that the old fool has not followed the last point on the list and has taken excessive intoxicants. There is no other explanation for the fact that Draco feels like collapsing on a bed and never getting up again while a man easily old enough to be his father seems ready to climb Mount Everest that very day.

“We need to find _kamal_ ,” Lovegood says excitedly, checking a small list he has been keeping in his pocket all this time, “and _suryamukhi_ , and _sayapatri_. Yes, it’s imperative that we find _sayapatri_.”

Draco darkens slightly as he drags his weary limbs around the village. “The writings are all in Nepali,” he points out. “How are we supposed to find these—what are they?”

But Lovegood isn’t listening to him. “Here, here!” he exclaims and disappears inside the umpteenth shop. Draco follows him inside, reluctantly, but he is sure that Potter would have a heart attack if Draco were to go back to the lodge without Lovegood.

Inside, the place is warm and stinks of herbs and dead animals. It looks like a herbalist’s shop. Draco stares at the apothecary jars as Lovegood speaks to an amused shopkeeper, who'd probably smelled the money on the daft trekker while he was still a mile away.

Draco wonders if Scorpius has stopped there with the others, wonders if his son has bought anything from that shop or any other shop in town. He wonders if Scorpius has bought something for Draco or for his mother. Draco’s mind goes back to the evening before his son’s departure. The mess in Scorpius’ room, the stupid clothes that Draco scoffed about. He goes back to the last words he said to his son, and convinces himself that Scorpius didn’t buy him anything at all.

Then, he can’t help thinking about Potter. He’s sure that she had been excited about that suicidal expedition and probably kissed her daughter goodbye and good luck. He wonders who feels worse. She who had blessed the trip, or he who hadn’t even said goodbye to his son.

“Ah, absolutely marvellous,” chirps Lovegood as he reaches Draco with many small bags hanging on his wrist. “I was even given a free bag! Look at it! Isn’t it precious?”

Draco doesn’t even look at it. “It’s getting late, Potter will start to worry,” he says.

Lovegood puts the bag away. “Ginny dear will be at the post office for a good while,” he says calmly. “Most transactions take a considerable amount of time there, as they are nearly always short of owls. And I need to find some _aduwa_  before we go back. This is the last village with a Wizarding district before Gorakshep, and there’ll only be a Wizarding guesthouse there.” He smiles brightly. “How exciting, isn’t it, Draco? To have to mix ourselves with Muggles in this part of the world!”

Draco doesn’t reply, but after Lovegood has found this _aduwa_ , which looks like common ginger to Draco, they go back to the lodge.

He pretends he doesn’t see Potter’s red eyes when he walks into the room, and she pretends she’s not been crying.


	2. Savichara

_ _

_ _

“I cannot believe that we’re going to Tengboche,” Lovegood keeps repeating first thing in the morning. “I cannot believe it!” He had been the last one to go to bed, reading until all the oil finished in his lamp, and now he’s the first one up, dressed in five minutes while Potter looks at him from beneath the covers of her tiny, smelly bed.

“What’s so fantastic about this place?” grunts Draco, pushing away his rough covers and sitting up. His eyes hurt; he hadn’t gotten as much sleep as he would have liked.

“The monastery,” Lovegood says, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet like a child on Christmas day. “One of the biggest ones of the region. It’s beautiful and we have to visit it; the monks are very knowledgeable. We have to talk to them.”

Draco looks over at Potter, who is only now sitting up, the covers bobbing in her lap and she shivers slightly. He can’t help noticing the gooseflesh covering her naked arms and her pointy nipples straining against her t-shirt. She must be cold. “Is Tengboche on our path?” he asks lightly. “We’re not taking detours for him, are we?”

Potter grabs her jumper and dons it hastily over her t-shirt. “It’s our next stop,” she yawns. “There’s a village near the monastery, but there are no Wizarding lodges there.”

“I know,” says Draco as he stands up. “Lovegood told me yesterday.”

She nods, probably surprised at how well he’s taking it. “The way is steep,” she says, “but it’s shorter than yesterday.”

He looks at her and nods back. “Good,” he says, not knowing what he should reply exactly.

She gets up from her bed and keeps shivering until she’s wrapped herself in more layers of warm clothes. The air outside is cold and getting colder the higher into the mountains they get; Draco wonders what the weather and the temperatures will be like once they’ve reached Gorakshep, or gone even higher than that. He hopes that Potter is skilled with Heating Charms because he only knows one and has never had to use it in his life.

Potter walks past him and goes to the bathroom they share with the other magic folks of the lodge. She’s quick, and when she comes out she still looks tired, but somehow refreshed and determined to tackle the day.

“I’ll go and order three breakfasts,” she announces as she pushes her backpack up onto her shoulders. “I’ll wait for you in the dining room.”

Draco nods and sits back on his bed as Lovegood uses the bathroom. Five minutes later, Draco’s throwing cold water all over his face until he can’t feel his fingertips or his nose anymore.

When Draco goes downstairs, Potter is already studying the map, and Lovegood is studying the contents of the bag that he was given the day before: phials with mysterious powders and liquids, ginger, stones. He mutters under his breath and looks inexplicably happy about that junk.

“We should arrive at Tengboche early this afternoon,” says Potter, “if we’re not delayed by more stops than I’ve calculated.” She looks up at Draco. “It’s going to get cold, especially at night.”

“Colder than this?” he asks, trying to keep his tone even.

She nods. “Colder, and the air is going to be even more rarefied,” she says. “The climb won’t be too long, but it’s going to be hard, especially because we didn’t stop to acclimatise.”

“My dear Luna and the others stopped for a few days,” says Lovegood, finally putting the contents of his bag away and hanging the bag around his neck. “They went up to the Sherpa Culture Museum, hiked to the nearby forest, found a tiny bug that looked suspiciously like a Billywig…”

“Billywigs are native to Australia, Xenophilius,” points out Potter gently.

“Precisely, my dear!” he exclaims. “That’s what made that one so extraordinary!”

Draco lowers his head to his breakfast and starts eating. He cannot believe, for the life of him, that his son hadn’t regretted his choice of trekking with those people well before his untimely death.

_ _

Potter is right: the road seems both more and less difficult than the days before. It’s shorter, and they can take longer breaks for they’ll be arriving in the afternoon anyway, but Draco is short of breath in a matter of minutes and the temperature drops as soon as the occasional cloud hides the sun and rises once more when the sun comes out again.

They have to pass many suspended bridges that look anything but safe, and Draco mutters an occasional Levitation Charm when he feels like they’re about to fall to their fate. Lovegood sings and jumps up and down on the wooden planks supported by magic; Potter turns to look at Draco, a mix of amusement and gratefulness on her face.

They stop to eat near a Stupa, painted white and with the four sets of eyes of the Buddha that overlook every direction, and finally Draco takes in the landscape. The trees have thinned considerably and tiny villages nestled in magnificent mountains are now visible in the distance. Everything is so immense, so glorious that, for a moment, he almost forgets to breathe.

He wishes Scorpius was there with him, sharing that same view at that same moment. The fact that his son has probably stopped near that Stupa, too, a few weeks back, is no consolation. It only helps Draco feeling something heavy pressing against his chest almost painfully.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it, Draco?” Lovegood is all smiles. “I remember the first time Luna told me about it. Oh, I’ve wanted to come here all my life. I’ve probably wanted it more than finding a Crumple-Horned Snorkack.”

Of course, the old fool cannot open his mouth without talking at least a little bit of rubbish. “Yeah, it’s beautiful,” he croaks out, taking a deep breath.

“I think…” starts Potter, her voice tiny, “I think Lily must have loved this place. She’s always loved the mountains, much more than the sea.” She looks at the peaks covered in snow and her eyes suddenly shine with tears. “I always had her wearing t-shirts at the beach; she’s so pale that she would burn all over if she stood in the sun for more than five minutes.” She smiles at the memory and wipes away a tear; Draco feels the urge to look away. “She hated it, you know. She said that all her cousins and friends were allowed to go around in their swimsuits and she couldn’t.” She sighs and then sniffles. “But when we went up in the mountains… Oh, Merlin! She loved that. She was always walking ten feet ahead of us, looking under every bush and every tree for wild animals, pretty flowers, and edible mushrooms. She loved it… She… She still does…” Potter sniffles again and, when Draco glances at her, he sees that she’s using the sleeves of her jacket to dry her eyes.

Lovegood is at her side before Draco can even think up a word of comfort to make her stop crying. Lovegood hugs her tightly and whispers something that has Potter nodding and smiling.

When they resume their walk, they’re all silent. Even Lovegood.

They cross two more bridges and encounter a group of trekkers who go the opposite way. Lovegood remarks with interest how big their luggage is on the back of those yakows, and they look at him a bit offended for Merlin knows what reason. Their suitcases really are gigantic.

Potter steps in though, asking them how far is the monastery and if the road is steep.

“The last bit is the steeper,” says an American woman with greasy hair, “but it’s not far. The lodges are packed, though. So many Australians arrived just as we were leaving. You can camp around the wall, though. Lots of space there.”

“Camp?” asks Draco, unable to keep the horror from his voice.

The woman looks at him amusedly. “You can sleep in the monastery if you’d rather,” she says, “but your wife can’t.”

He lets the bit about the wife drop. “Why?” he asks instead.

“Because she’s a woman, and the monks don’t want women in the monastery after sunset,” replies a man who looks like he can’t wait to resume their descent. “Now, excuse us, but we left a bit late and we’d like to get to Namche before it gets too cold.”

The Americans bid them goodbye and continue their walk; the Sherpas at the end of their group scream at the yakows to hurry, and Lovegood can’t seem to resist patting the animals on their necks as they walk past.

“Magnificent beasts,” he comments contently.

“Xenophilius,” says Potter gently, as they resume their walk, “you can’t comment on other people’s luggage. Especially, you can’t tell them how big their suitcases are. They don’t like it, they like to think that they’re travelling light, without all the comforts of home.”

Lovegood lets out a hearty laugh. “How silly of them!” he exclaims as he hurries forward, hopping on those long legs of his.

“It’s ridiculous,” grumbles Draco as he walks closer to her.

“He’s just excited,” she sighs. “He’s loving this adventure.”

“No,” he says, “it’s ridiculous that we have to sleep in a tent. I’ve never done that, not even at the Quidditch World Cup, and I’ve attended it every single year.”

Potter looks at him and nods. “You can sleep in the monastery with Xenophilius,” she says calmly. “You heard them. You’re a man, you’ll be welcomed.”

He shakes his head, and his face darkens. “And leave you alone outside? I hardly think so.”

He can feel her turning to look at him, but he doesn’t glance back. “I’ll be fine,” she says, her voice gentle, and he can definitely hear a smile.

“No, I know you’ll be fine,” he grunts, “but… but you have the maps and you know the way. And I’d rather stay close to you than to… _him_.”

“The way is really not that difficult, Malfoy,” she continues. “You just keep going north, following the only path, and—”

“I’m not leaving you out there in a tent all alone,” he says heatedly. “What if you leave without us?”

“Where would I go?” she asks back with surprise.

“What if you die for the cold?”

“The tent comes with a Heating Charm,” she points out gently.

He darkens even more when he isn’t able to find any valid excuse as to why he wants to sleep close to her. He doesn’t know why he wants to do that either. He just knows that knowing that he’d be inside in a bed while she’s sleeping in a tent out in the cold makes him uneasy. He is the wizard – even though so far he has let her take every decision and guide them there – and she’s the witch. She should be the one sleeping inside while he’s out in the cold.

“I’m not letting you sleep outside alone,” he grunts, “that’s final.”

She brings her head closer to him and, when he half-turns, he gets an eyeful of freckles. “You need to keep an eye on Xenophilius,” she whispers.

“He’ll be perfectly fine,” he says with finality, walking faster to make the conversation come to an end.

_ _

Tengboche Monastery is immense.

Of course, it’s not even a tenth the size of the Manor, but after three days of small villages and even smaller houses and guesthouses, it looks grandiose. There’s a colourful gate welcoming the pilgrims and the trekkers, with a narrow staircase that leads to the main building, and to their left a white Stupa with the all-seeing eyes of the Buddha.

There’s a pyramid made of Prayer Tablets on the grass outside and, when Potter spots the Payer Wheels, she insists that they all spin them.

“It’s for good luck, please,” she begs Draco when he looks at them darkly. As if spinning a stupid wheel with a prayer on it, would make them find their children alive.

Somehow, she manages to mollify him when she stares at him without anger, but only with hope in her eyes, as if she’s not trying to make him do something that he doesn’t want just for the fun of it, but because she really needs him to do it.

He doesn’t want to feed her false hopes, but he can’t resist her. He’s tired, he’s having difficulties breathing, he’s cold. He wants to get into the monastery, eat something, leave Lovegood in the care of the monks, and camp for the night. Even when it’s barely afternoon.

He spins the wheels almost mechanically, pouting to let her know that he’s not enjoying it, but Potter whispers an inaudible, “Thank you,” and he nods back.

Inside, the monastery is beautifully decorated. There isn’t a single inch of wall or piece of furniture that is left without colour. Demons, gods, saints, images from Sutras and other sacred books adorn everything. The colours are bright and the lines thick and clean. They look like children’s paintings, even though some of them are almost terrifying.

The monks are welcoming, they smile and nod, and they even seem to speak a bit of English. Lovegood makes a huge fuss and asks to talk to this and that person; Draco thinks that his daughter must have written to him and told him what they did, and he’s just doing everything they did, as a sort of subconscious homage to their memory. He soon disappears in some private room with an old monk and Draco turns to look at Potter, but she’s deep in conversation with a bonze herself.

Draco wanders a bit more, and finds himself in front of a tall statue of a cross-legged Buddha. It’s painted gold, and it has a rice bowl in his left hand, while with the other one he’s touching the earth. Draco stares at it, mesmerised by that kind of art so different from the one he is used to in England.

“Ah,” says a quiet and cheerful voice at his right, “the Earth Touching Buddha.”

Draco glances at the small monk next to him before turning to look at the statue again.

“The moment when Buddha found Enlightenment and called the Earth and all beings to witness,” explains the monk, even when Draco hasn’t asked for an explanation at all. “The moment he wins Saṃsāra. The cycle of existence, no more deaths, no more rebirths, no more sufferings, no more ignorance.”

Draco stares at the statue. _No more deaths, no more sufferings_. That’s a comforting thought; for a moment he finds himself hoping his son has attained Enlightenment in a place like that. If he did, then Draco would know that he’s alive. But Draco’s sure Scorpius didn’t find Enlightenment, and he’s sure he’s not alive.

“They have single rooms. I booked two.”

Draco blinks as Potter touches his elbow and whispers in his ear. He looks around himself; the monk is gone as silently as he had come.

“For whom?” he asks her, looking down at her tired face.

“You and Xenophilius,” she says. “You need to stay with him. He’s old, we don’t know what—”

“I’m not sleeping in here if you aren’t either,” he states.

“I can’t sleep in here,” she reminds him, “and the monks say that the lodges are all booked. I’ll be fine in the tent.”

He shakes his head firmly. She’s been bossing him around enough, he reckons. “No,” he says, “we’ll talk to the monks, tell them to keep an eye on him and we’ll retrieve him at dawn.”

She hunches her shoulders a bit. “Malfoy…”

He straightens his. “That’s final, Potter,” he says. “Let’s go and find something to eat, now.”

She nods and he swears he can see her lips curving upwards in a tiny smile.

They leave Lovegood at the monastery; the monks promise to feed him and take care of him until the following morning, and Potter hugs him forcefully before bidding him a good afternoon.

They have lunch in a small, blue-walled stall that advertises sandwiches, salads, Nepalese meals, and other things that don’t look inviting at all. They have rice with yak curry, because Potter insists that they have to eat something fattening that will help them tackle the following day.

They eat in silence for a while, until Potter pushes away her half-finished meal and opens the map once more.

“Tomorrow is going to be an easy day,” she says. “Dingboche, our next stop, is not far, and the climb is not too steep. We should be there early in the afternoon, just like today.”

Draco nods first at her and then at her dish. “Aren’t you going to finish it? You insisted we get this,” he says darkly.

She doesn’t look up. “I wasn’t as hungry as I expected,” she replies lightly.

“You need it to replenish your forces,” he points out. The last thing he wants is for her to be sick and him to have to play Healer. Somehow, he has no problems – and he’s almost happy – to think that Lovegood could fall ill and they have to abandon him somewhere and retrieve him on the way back, but he doesn’t want to have to leave her behind. She’s become the leader of their expedition, the one who seems to know the way by heart, as if she’s been called by something towards the place where their children were last spotted. “Are you listening to me, Weasley?”

“It’s Potter,” she reminds him tiredly. “And yes, I’m listening, but I’m not hungry.”

“I don’t see how that has anything to do with common sense,” he replies, pushing the dish towards her with his spoon. “Eat.”

She lowers the map and sighs. “You’re worse than Harry,” she complains before grabbing her spoon and pushing the rice around a little. She looks at the food like she’s about to throw up. “My stomach is in knots,” she whispers, her voice almost whiny. “I can’t.”

“Do it for your daughter,” he exhorts her. “You need to keep your forces.”

She lowers her head a little; she looks even more tired and sadder than before. But then she scoops up some rice and brings it to her mouth, chewing on it bravely.

“Good,” he says before returning his attention to his own food.

After their meal – Draco doesn’t know if it’s a lunch or a dinner – they set up a tent at the far end of the village, next to a few others who haven’t found a room like them. Potter insists they use only one tent, even when they have two. One is big enough for a family, and it’s better if they keep a low profile since, if Muggles glance inside and discover it looks nothing like a tent, they’d have to use all sorts of Memory Charms to keep them quiet about it.

Draco goes to fetch some milk tea, while Potter toes off her trekking boots and lies down on one of the beds.

When Draco comes back, she’s lying on her stomach, writing furiously on a piece of parchment and almost doesn’t notice him. He sits on his bed and looks at her; the dip of her back under her jumper, the way she bites her bottom lip, her long, crimson hair fanned out over her shoulders. She looks so deep in concentration that he almost doesn’t want to disturb her. But she was the one who has asked for tea and so he clears his throat and hands her a cup.

“Oh,” she says, jerking her head towards him. “You startled me.”

“Sorry,” he says before he can stop himself. He pours himself a cup, too and nods towards the parchment. “Are you keeping a journal of the trip?” He imagines that her husband might have asked her to do so.

She shakes her head and blows on the hot tea. “I’m writing to Harry,” she replies. “I… I think that the next time I’ll be able to send post will be in Gorakshep, but I don’t want to forget anything.”

He nods thoughtfully.

“Do you want to write to your wife?” she asks. “I’ve got parchment and quills, if you want.”

He looks down at his beverage. It’s spotty, as if the milk they’ve used is too fatty to mix with the tea. “I’m fine, thank you,” he replies curtly.

“But have you at least written to her to let her know that we’ve arrived in Nepal?” she insists, her voice anxious, as if she can feel Astoria’s discomfort at the lack of news all the way from England. “She must be worried sick.”

“It’s fine,” he replies coolly. He doesn’t want to start a conversation about that. He doesn’t want her to know about his private life.

She swallows some of the tea. “I can ask Harry to pass on a message, if you’d rather,” she says, her voice almost shy.

He darkens slightly. “If he feels so inclined,” he grunts. Anything to make her stop talking about that. “Tell him to tell her that everything’s fine, and we haven’t found them yet.”

There’s a pause, she sips a bit more of her tea, and then scribbles down what he has told her. Then she looks back up at him. “Wouldn’t she have wanted to come, too?” she asks softly. “Astoria, I mean.”

He’s sure she knows his wife’s name because the Prophet must have written about them at some point. He doesn’t think anything of that. “No,” he replies, “she wouldn’t.”

“How can you say that?” she asks, almost desperately. “Scorpius is her only son.”

He glares at her. He doesn’t want to talk about his family. Not with her. Is it that difficult for her to understand? “She couldn’t come,” he finally spats. “Same reason why you’re here instead of Potter.”

“Harry couldn’t come,” she reminds him, suddenly sniffling, “because the Nepalese Ministry of Magic sees the presence of the British Head Auror on their territory as a breach of their jurisdiction.”

He looks away from her. “And Astoria couldn’t come because she couldn’t,” he insists. “Have you finished your tea? I’ll take the thermos and the cups back to the stall.”

She downs it, and gives him the cup, when their fingertips touch, she murmurs a soft, “Sorry,” and then looks away.

He nods at her curtly. When he walks out of the tent, he’s surprised to see that the sun is already setting and the temperatures are dropping. When he comes back, he finds her already lying under the covers of her bed.

Her red hair looks like flames around her head; her freckled skin seems burnt after all the sun she has been subjected to during their trekking.

“It’s cold,” she complains softly as he gets undressed.

“You should feel the temperature outside,” he points out. “In here it’s nice and toasty.”

She hums and waits for him to lie down on his bed before she talks again. “Malfoy?”

“What?” he asks before he manages to turn off his lamp.

“You don’t… you don’t really think that they’re dead, do you?” she murmurs so softly that Draco has to hold his breath to hear her.

He switches off the lamp and lies down. He can hear her breathing close to him. “Sleep, Weasley,” he says quietly.

There’s a sob coming from her bed and then she’s downright crying. “I don’t know if they’re alive either,” she weeps.

He doesn’t reply. He stretches his hand towards her bed and finds hers; he has to worm his fingers between her digits and the cover she’s holding to squeeze her hand.

She squeezes him back.

_ _

The following morning, Lovegood is a chatterbox. He has managed to exchange the ginger with some more herbs and concoctions, and he shows them proudly at the breakfast table. Draco looks at them without an ounce of interest. His arm is cold and still rather numb. Potter has held his hand throughout the night, but she hasn’t cried since his fingers have squeezed hers comfortingly. Now, she looks like she’s back to normal, as if she is putting on a brave face for the old fool.

Draco is surprised that she would let him see her at her most fragile, but he feels almost smug that between Lovegood and himself she’d choose _his_ shoulder to cry on. She probably wants to protect the old fool, not cause him any more grief than he’s already feeling. Even when he himself masks it so well.

“And look at this, Draco!” exclaims Lovegood, dangling a little satchel in front of his eyes. “This will come extremely handy when we get to—”

“I don’t care, you old fool,” growls Draco, the rage suddenly mounting inside of him, without an apparent reason. He is surprised by his outburst. “Buy all the souvenirs you need to feel good, but don’t ask me to look at them!”

Lovegood looks at him, surprised at the way Draco’s voice is raising. “But they’re not souvenirs,” he points out calmly. “But I’ve got souvenirs, too, you know. I’ve found a wonderful statue of a reclined Buddha that will look gorgeous in my living room. Would you like to see it?”

Draco glares at him and pushes his chair back, grabbing his bowl of fruit salad before he stalks away to have breakfast by himself, outside in the sun.

He hears Potter pretending to sound interested and asking more about Lovegood’s junk; her tone is soothing and sweet. She agrees that Luna will love everything that he bought.

Draco swears he can recognise the anguish in her voice.

_ _

Potter is right once again, the route to Dingboche is easier than every other day has been so far. As they leave the monastery behind, the path is large and flat, with big trees shading them from the sun. Later, it becomes narrow again, but the few steep climbs are short and they take as many breaks as Lovegood needs, since the way is not long.

The more they walk the more the landscape changes: soon the trees disappear almost completely and in their place vast valleys filled with wild rhododendrons and rudimental farmlands alternate before them.

Finally, without the trees, Draco can get an even better idea of the vastness of the place and the altitude of the peaks. Everything is immense, and he suddenly feels rather small and insignificant. He doesn’t like it one bit. Malfoys are not _insignificant_. He wonders if Scorpius felt the same way as he walked that path. He wonders if his son felt insignificant, too. With that thought in mind, Draco likes that place even less. He wonders if at any point Scorpius asked his companions to go back home. No, Draco’s sure his son would never whine and ask such embarrassing things. Scorpius was stubborn, and once he made up his mind he never went back.

Draco puts one foot in front of the other, but his mind is somewhere else. He tries to imagine what sort of relationship his son might have built with the people he was trekking with. Loony Lovegood and her crazy family – Draco has never met them, but he can’t help imagining them being as insane as his old schoolmate – and Harry Potter’s daughter. He wonders if the Scamanders’ random comments drove his son up the wall, and if Potter’s daughter was as obstinate as her mother or as reckless as her father. He wonders if she drove Scorpius up the wall as well.

Draco sighs. He can’t believe it’s all his fault.

But it is.

He feels a pain under his ribs at the thought and stops, closes his eyes, and for a moment he considers letting himself fall back; hopefully he’ll slice his head open against one of those rocks and he’ll stop hurting.

“Are you okay?” Potter’s voice is worn out with concern, and her fingers on his wrist are almost painful.

He opens his eyes again and looks at her; her face is worried beyond words. For some obscure reason, he likes to believe that she’s worrying about him. “Yeah,” he replies quietly, his voice throaty.

“Shall we stop? Are you tired?”

He tries to wiggle free from her hand, but she’s rubbing her thumb against the inside of his wrist now, and it’s soothing and it makes him feel better. “No,” he says, “I can continue.”

She looks at him with eyes wide, but when he offers her a small smile, she finally nods and let him go.

“I reckon we should stop near the Imja Khola for lunch,” says Lovegood, standing up from the rock where he’s had a little rest while Draco regained his forces and sanity. “It’s beautiful, and at this time of year, it can be quite big, you know.” He turns and smiles at them, his blue eyes a sharp contrast with his burnt face. “My Luna said that they stopped there for lunch, too!” he exclaims. “Said they found some interesting, albeit not fantastic, beasts. Wild ponies and yaks though, as well as sea buckthorn bush.” He grins. “We can have them for dessert!”

Draco looks at Potter. “What’s the Imja Khola?” he asks tiredly.

“A river,” she replies. “A river that goes into Dingboche. Once we find that, it’s only half an hour to the village.” She looks at him, still concerned. “We can stop before that if you want to.”

“I’m fine, Potter, I’m fine,” he growls. “We’ll stop at the river. We’ll refill our water bottles, too, right?”

She nods and doesn’t add anything else as they resume their walking.

They find the river a couple of hours later; Draco is tired and so is Potter apparently. He can’t tell about Lovegood because he keeps talking to himself and to Potter, and to Draco, too, but he pays him no mind.

They have to cross a suspended bridge before they can find a not too steep slope that brings them down to the valley where the river flows. It’s deserted, luckily, except for a few wild yaks that keep themselves at a distance. The river looks big and quite menacing, but they sit near an inlet and take out their lunch.

“This place is absolutely wonderful,” chirps Lovegood. “Isn’t it, Ginny dear?”

Potter smiles tiredly at him. “Yes, Xenophilius,” she replies. “It’s breath taking.”

Draco snorts. “That’s the correct word,” he mutters, feeling as if he’s been having difficulties taking a deep breath ever since they’d Portkeyed to Lukla. He bites down on his sandwich. The bread is moist and there is butter between his yak meat and the tomatoes, the taste is weird, but Draco feels like he’s either getting used to those flavours or too hungry to mind anymore.

“We need to find some sea buckthorn bush,” says Lovegood as he makes a mess of his sandwich, crumbles falling everywhere. “Do you like sour flavours, Ginny dear?”

She smiles and nods. “Yes, I quite like them,” she replies. “I like lemon cakes, the ones my mum makes. Have you ever tried them, Xenophilius?”

He nods back. “Delicious they are! She always brings them over on Wednesday afternoon, and we have them with tea and some Dirigible Plum jam, directly from my garden,” he says. “Your dad loves my Dirigible Plums.”

Potter smiles. “Lily… Lily loved them, too,” she whispers, and Draco can’t help noticing that she’s talking in the past, now, and somehow that makes his heart skip a beat. “She loved that she would eat one and then float for the kitchen for an hour,” she continues, her voice a bit broken. “Remember, Xenophilius?”

“Oh, yes, yes,” he chuckles, apparently not even noticing the distress in Potter’s voice. “Just like my Luna,” he grins. “We need to have a Dirigible Plum party when we’re all back in England, don’t you think, Ginny dear?” He looks at Draco and his grin becomes wider. “With Scorpius and Draco and Astoria, too,” he invites them. “I bet Scorpius will love them as well.” He winks at Draco as if they’re old friends. “I mean, after all if Lily loves them and—”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” snaps Draco, trying to put an end to that rubbish. He opens his mouth to add something, but he can’t find anything to say.

“Why not?” chuckles Lovegood. “We love to have parties, don’t we, Ginny dear?” He stands up from his rock, grabbing the bag he was given in Namche. “We should find some of those berries; we can bring them home with us, make a jam of those, too. Maybe your mum can make some sea buckthorn cakes, don’t you think?”

Potter nods, eyes shiny with tears, now.

“I’m sure Lily will love them,” he continues. “I think Luna mentioned that she ate some, now that I think about it. More than some, actually, and she loved them! Oh, yes, can you imagine how happy she’ll be when we make her sea buckthorn cakes back in England? To remember this adventure?”

Potter hides her face in both hands and starts crying. “Please, Xenophilius…” she sobs. “I… I can’t…”

The old fool widens his eyes and hurries to her side. “Oh, Ginny dear, whatever is the matter?” he asks worriedly.

Draco can’t take it anymore. “You,” he snaps, standing up and going to him, “you are the matter, you old crazy fool!” He grabs the front of Lovegood’s jacket and shakes him. “You shut up! Do you understand me? They’re dead! _Dead_! There aren’t going to be any parties back in England! Her daughter, your daughter, my son… they’re all dead! Do you understand me?”

Lovegood’s face is white, his eyes wide; he lets Draco shake him left and right with force, only gripping the younger wizard’s wrists for support, but without reacting to his fury. He looks positively scared and he should be, Draco feels ready to push him back until he’s fallen into the river behind him.

“Stop talking like we’re on holiday!” he screams, his voice echoing in the valley. “We’re not! We’re going to go, find their corpses, and bring them back home! Maybe they’ve already found them and all we have to do is put them on those yakows that you like so much and bring them back with us!”

Lovegood’s eyes look scared as he takes a step back and slips on some wet rocks. Draco is tempted to let him fall into the river.

“Malfoy, no!” Potter grasps his arm so forcefully, Draco recoils. “Let him go! Don’t… don’t hurt him! Please!”

Draco’s face scrunches up in rage. “I can’t take his nonsense anymore!” he screams, shaking him again.

“Please, Draco, please.” It’s the first time she uses his first name and he feels something pleasant spread at the pit of his stomach without really understanding why. “Please, he doesn’t mean any harm, I swear. Please, Draco, let him go…”

Draco grits his teeth, pushes the old fool back a little, then he finally lets him go, and turns around.

“Are you okay, Xenophilius?” she asks with concern. “Are you hurt?”

Draco darkens as she plays Healer to Lovegood. That fool doesn’t deserve it. He deserves to be left behind.

“No!” the old man howls suddenly, and Draco swirls around to look at him. “My bag! My bag!” he screams so loudly that people are probably hearing him up in Dingboche.

Draco has just the time to look at the colourful piece of textile floating on the river before Potter starts screaming, too.

“No! Xenophilius! No! It’s just a bag! It’s just a bag!”

But it’s too late, the old fool is trying to run behind the sack; he gets into the river up to his knees, spraying ice-cold water everywhere, and Potter tries to restrain him. She is, thankfully, much stronger than him, and she manages to pull him back.

“Summon it!” Lovegood screams. “Summon my bag!”

Potter is holding him back, not looking for her wand at all, and Draco’s own wand is at the bottom of his backpack; he hasn’t had to use it for four days, he didn’t think he would need it now.

“Summon the bag! Stop it! Stop it!”

Draco has never heard the man so distressed, and those cries are making him nervous. Lovegood is always unruffled; Lovegood is always daydreaming and looking like he is living on a different planet. Lovegood has never screamed once since the beginning of their journey. Why would he be reacting that way? What does he keep in that bag that is so important to him?

What if it _is_ important?

Could it be?

Draco doesn’t know. What he knows is that he doesn’t even think it through as he throws himself into the river and after the bag.

“No! Draco! No!”

He’s finally happy that Potter is worrying about him, but that thought is wiped away from his head when the icy water soaks him through his clothes. It’s so cold, he suddenly can’t feel his limbs anymore; he just pushes himself past the rocks, the bag floating calmly a few feet ahead of him. The water is much deeper than he had expected and he has to alternate a few strokes to scraping his knees on the pebbled bottom of the river.

He hears a loud chattering sound, and it takes him a moment to understand that it’s his teeth. Soon, he can’t feel anything anymore, he’s probably slashed his hand open because he sees blood floating near him, but he doesn’t feel the pain. The water is sloshing so loudly that he can’t hear anything else now.

Why did he do it? Why? Why? Why? He is no bloody Saint Potter, and this is no damsel in distress. God! Even Potter wouldn’t have thrown himself after a sodding bag. How stupid can Draco be? If he dies now, his necrology on the Prophet will read, _Dead while he tried to save a bag_. There are a million more heroic ways to die up on the roof of the world. But no, Draco has to throw himself after an old fool’s bag. What’s wrong with him? The air is too rarefied up there, his brain is more damaged than he had thought possible.

The only consolation is that he’ll be with Scorpius sooner than he expected.

The river turns sharply and he can see the bag getting closer, it’s stuck on a rock. He grabs something and propels himself forward, until his white fingers close spasmodically around the strap of the bag. He throws it towards the grassy land, but slips forward as he does and suddenly something hard and cold hits his temple.

He’s pushed under the water, where all the sounds are muffled. For a moment, time seems to stop. For a moment, he doesn’t feel the cold anymore, nor the pain, nor the ache in his chest.

His eyes close and he suddenly feels very tired.

Then he feels at peace.

_I’m coming, Scorpius. I’m coming, son…_

_ _

When Draco opens his eyes again, everything is dark. The sky above his head has no stars and, for a moment, he really believes that he’s dead.

It lasts only a few seconds, though, then something warm and soft brushes on top of him, and he is aware that that something is pushing him against the mattress, covering him, and keeping him warm.

He takes a gasping breath and tries to bring his hand to rub his face, but he only manages to bend his elbow and close his fingers over a smooth hip.

“Oh, God,” murmurs Potter, her breath warm against his collarbone. “You’re awake.” She turns a bit on top of him and he can feel her body pressing against his own as her arms wind around his neck, and she weeps.

Slowly he becomes aware of the fact that she’s naked, and so is he. Her soft breasts are pushed against his chest, and her taut stomach presses against his hipbone. Her legs are intertwined with his own, and her thigh is carelessly placed next to his cock, while her mound is resting against the side of his arse. His hand on her side can’t help exploring her skin a little, and he finds it soft and warm under his fingers.

“Why did you throw yourself after that stupid bag?” she sobs. “God, you scared me to death. How could you?”

He doesn’t know what he should answer to that. He didn’t think, that’s the truth. He doesn’t even know why he did it, he just did. For some reason that he can’t fathom, he feels like apologising is a good thing at that moment. “I’m sorry,” he croaks out, and when she tightens her arms around his neck, he feels the urge to hug her back, with both arms this time.

Her body is comforting against his; he doesn’t know what compelled her to arrange their bodies in such a way. He is not going to question it, though. Not now.

He rests his hands on the dip of her back, he can feel the beads of her spine against his wrists, and her muscles heaving as she breathes softly. She feels so good that he wants to weep for the impending morning, when they have to part ways and continue their trek with their annoying companion.

“Where’s Lovegood?” he asks, his voice throaty. He doesn’t want the old fool to interrupt them with a rigmarole about what’s right and what’s not right. He doesn’t care now, all he cares about is that she feels good and that he needs her.

“His tent,” she says. “He’s the one who suggested we’d warm you up like this.”

“Like this?” he croaks out.

She nods in reply; he can feel it against his neck. “He swears he read somewhere that body heat is even more effective than Heating Charms.” She pauses. “He wanted to help, too, but he was too worried with the content of his bag to just lie here and let you sleep.”

“Thank Merlin,” he groans, without being able to stop himself.

She lets out a small, suffocated chuckle. “He’s much taller than both of us,” she points out. “He would have done a much better job at keeping you warm.”

“Yeah, but I bet he doesn’t feel as good as you do.”

She stiffens slightly in his arms, and he thinks he’s gone too far. Then he thinks that’s unfair, because she is the one who got him naked and wrapped herself around him. To save his life, of course, but still…

When he speaks again, his voice is soft. “I mean, you don’t get on my nerves as much as he does,” he whispers. “I mean he’s—”

“You feel good, too,” she interrupts him frantically. She pushes her nose in his neck and he turns his head towards hers, his lips touching her forehead without kissing her; he breathes her in and out.

“You’re the only sane person here,” she goes on softly. “God, I’d be already out of my mind if you weren’t here.”

She presses herself more forcefully against him, her thigh digging into his lower abdomen. It’s not uncomfortable. No, it definitely isn’t. He can feel his blood starting to rush downwards, and suddenly he’s very well aware of the fact that he’s getting hard and that if he doesn’t move away from her, she’ll notice.

His hands don’t release her, though. He can’t bring himself to let her go. He feels as if he’s going to go mad if his fingers should slide away from her skin now. She’s warm, she’s real, she’s familiar. It doesn’t matter how much he’d hated her in the past, how much pain he’d caused her, how much he’d tried to avoid any contact with her and her family in the past thirty years. Right now, she’s all he has, all he wants, all he needs to keep himself from falling.

He’s so focused on keeping her close to him that he doesn’t even feel her lips teasing soft kisses all over his neck. Her hair is tickling his jaw and he closes his eyes to soak in the sensations.

She wiggles gently, and he tightens his arms around her to keep her next to him but, when her hand comes to rest on his chest, he sighs softly and lets his arms slide from around her waist. He can’t keep her there against her will.

He opens his eyes again and suddenly there’s some light in the tent. He understands that she has drawn back the covers that have cocooned them until that very moment.

He looks at her face as she kneels up and slides a leg over his stomach, until she’s sitting lightly on his abdomen, his cock nestled between them. She looks at him, her brown eyes are so dark in the dim light that they look like two black holes that contain the whole universe and everything he needs to know.

She looks at him for what feels like a second and a year, her breathing is steady, he can see her white breasts heaving gently, and the muscles of her stomach tighten every time she inhales.

He places his hands over her thighs, making his fingers dance from her knees to her waist. God, he has never felt anything softer and warmer. She’s like fire.

She raises her arse from his pelvis and lowers her head until she’s cupping his cheeks and finally kissing him. Her fingers press against his face as if she’s afraid that he’ll disappear at any moment, and her lips are devouring him as if she can’t get enough of him. As if she doesn’t simply want it, she needs it. She needs it more than she needs oxygen and food.

He kisses her back, he has to, because he, too, feels like she might disappear at any moment. Not disappear, just come back to her senses and remember who she is kissing. And he doesn’t want that. He wants her to keep needing him as much as he needs her.

His hand brushes gently over her leg. Up, up, up. Until he’s closing his fingers over her side, his thumb pressing near her navel. He brings his other hand to his cock and guides it towards her.

He tightens his hand over her hip and pushes her down. She’s wet, and that’s a relief, because in his state he hasn’t even checked, and he slides inside without too much fumbling.

She lets out a suffocated groan against his lips, then presses her cheek against his as her hands wind up in his hair. He pushes her down until he is completely sheathed into her, and he keeps her there with both hands on her sides.

God, she’s so warm and tight and wet. Draco can’t remember the last time he felt so good during sex. Draco can’t remember the last time sex felt so good at all.

He wants to stay like that forever. In that tent, in the middle of nowhere, with Potter’s wife on top of him, and his cock deep inside of her. He cannot imagine anything more perfect than that, at that moment.

He needs to move though, because the pressure is building in his groin but he could never come like that. He runs his hands all over her back, until his fingers grab her locks spasmodically, and he presses her head against his neck.

His rhythm is steady and frantic and fast. The slap of skin against skin fills their tent and her whimpers against his cheek skin make him shiver. She’s holding onto his shoulders for dear life, now, and he’s grunting in her ear.

He pushes his heels in the mattress for leverage, and drives into her even more brutally. He can’t stop, he can feel the foretelling tightening of his balls, and he searches his orgasm with single-mindedly determination.

He wraps her shoulders in his arm and sneaks one hand between them. He presses his fingers, probably almost painfully, against her clit, and circles it.

He doesn’t know if she comes when he does, or before, or after; all he knows is that his eyes roll at the back of his head and his thrusts become jerkier.

He groans out loud, his fingers almost clawing at her shoulder blade as he comes inside of her. He feels so good that for a moment everything is forgotten. Who he is, who she is, what they’re doing there, where they are. The only thing that matters is that she’s there and he’s there, too.

He turns his head and kisses her temple, feeling her salty sweat under his lips. She groans again and presses her hands on the pillows near his head. She pushes herself off him, and he guides her to his side.

He hugs her again, just like before, and they don’t talk. The only sound in the tent is their ragged breathing and the furious beating of their hearts against their ribcages.

She dozes off in his arms, and he stares at the ceiling until sleep claims him, too.

_ _


	3. Sananda

** **

When Draco opens his eyes, he is lying in bed alone. The light coming from outside is strong and he can finally see the inside of the tent: Potter has moved the beds around and closer together.

He stretches a hand towards the place where she was lying the night before. Or so he believes; the memory is hazy. The mattress is still warm, but there are so many covers on top of him that he’s breaking a sweat anyway and can’t tell if it’s Potter’s warmth that he’s feeling.

Has she even been there? The night before feels like a dream now.

The dream of a delirious man.

He slips a hand under the covers, skimming over his abdomen and to his cock. He wraps a hand around it and when he unclasps it, he can feel the dried fluids stick to his palm and then crumble.

He gets up, cleans himself with a quick spell and, shivering, dons his trekking clothes. They are dry and even rougher against his skin than usual after having ended up in the river.

He pushes the flappy door of the tent aside and walks out. The sun is already quite high in the sky, and he can’t help wondering what time it is and why they’d let him sleep for so long.

He blinks in the bright light and finally puts the scene into focus. They’re camped near a wall, with many other tents around their own. On the wall, a crooked writing in English reads _Dingboche_. At least they are where they should be. Beyond the wall, a handful of houses, with some Sherpas already hard at work, let him know that that’s the village.

Potter and Lovegood are nowhere to be found, and for a slight moment he panics. Did they leave him there? Have they gone already? Without him? How could they?

He swallows and turns towards the tent to pack it and get going; he’ll catch up with them before they can even get to the first suspended bridge of the day.

“Morning.”

He stops at Potter’s voice. It’s soft and gentle and warm in that cold morning. He turns again and sees that she’s walking towards him, two cups of tea in her hands. She stretches one in his direction and smiles.

He takes it, relief suddenly flooding him. It feels good to know that he hasn’t been left behind.

“Morning,” he replies, taking the hot cup in his hand, their fingers barely touching.

“How do you feel?” she asks as she stands in front of him. She looks so normal. No hysterical sobs about what they have done. No guilt-ridden face that can barely stand to look at him.

“Good,” he replies quietly, sipping his tea. “You?”

“Good.”

He nods and looks over her shoulder at the houses. “We’re in Dingboche,” he states.

“We are.”

“Did you bring me here all the way from the river?” he asks, looking back at her.

She shakes her head imperceptibly. “Xenophilius did,” she replies. “I carried your backpack.” She turns towards a small path that leads up to the houses. “He wants to talk to you. To thank you for his bag.”

Draco darkens and waves a hand. “It’s fine,” he grunts.

“Not for him,” she says gently. “Let’s pack your tent and go and have something to eat before we head to Lobuche.”

She walks past him, and he can’t resist. His hand shoots forward, until his fingers close around her wrist and he stops her. He turns his head a bit towards her and inhales her scent sharply. “Thank you,” he murmurs, as she looks up at him with her big brown eyes.

She stands on tiptoes and he holds his breath as she plants a delicate kiss on his coarse cheek. “Don’t worry about it,” she whispers, her breath caressing his skin as she speaks.

He nods softly and lets her go and she crouches on the ground to put her cup down before fumbling with the tent. It could take them a handful of seconds, but Muggles are coming and going and they can’t risk using magic. Instead, it takes them about ten minutes, and then they’re finally pushing the tent into his backpack, listening as it falls into its extended interior.

Lovegood is talking to himself when they find him. Seated at a plastic table with three traditional Nepalese breakfasts complete with rice and curry, too, he’s still examining the contents of his damn bag and for a moment Draco wishes he didn’t save it.

When he sees them approaching, though, he stands up swiftly, pushing past other trekkers as he makes his way towards Draco with a grin on his face. Draco groans when he understands that he wants to hug him, but it’s too late for him to dodge the old man’s long limbs.

“Draco!” exclaims Lovegood, drawing the attention of the Muggles. “Thank you so much for saving my bag! Oh, Merlin! I don’t know what I would’ve done if I lost it.”

Draco glances at Potter, who is looking at them with a soft smile over her lips. He glares at her, but it only helps to make her smile more pronounced.

“It’s fine, Lovegood,” he grunts, patting the man’s back. “I… I wanted to take a bath anyway.”

Lovegood laughs so heartily, that Draco can feel him tremble against his chest as he hugs him with even more force. “Ah, Draco! What would we do without you?”

He looks at Potter again; she’s staring back at him with the gentlest expression he has ever seen her sporting since London. He can’t help thinking that the night before has been a cure-all for her, too.

Finally, Lovegood lets him go and they all go seat at the table. Draco is famished, and that Nepalese food has never tasted better. Potter eats, too, but less ravenously than he does. Lovegood grabs a bite every now and then, but spends most of the time taking out the contents of his bag and putting it back away.

“What’s the route like, today?” asks Draco as he swallows his fried bread. “Long?” All he wants to do is set up the tent again and spend some more time alone with Potter. They don’t even have to touch, but the mere thought of standing there alone with her and talking to her, makes him look forward to that evening.

“Not as long as yesterday,” she assures him, “but a bit steeper in places. We should get there in the afternoon.”

“Then Gorakshep,” says Lovegood cheerfully.

Potter nods. “Then Gorakshep,” she repeats softly.

Draco wants to ask, “Then?” but he doesn’t dare. He knows what will come after Gorakshep anyway. The three of them will look for their children around the village, maybe up the mountains, listening to tales about the Abominable Snowman from the wizard who owns the guesthouse there, and trying to find a trail to where their bodies are resting.

He feels strange. He can’t wait to get there to bring that journey to an end, and at the same time, he doesn’t want to ever reach that place, as if getting to the end of their journey will make all his worst fears come true.

No, his fears have already come true. They _can’t_ be alive. The more they climb up in that inhospitable environment the more he convinces himself.

“We’ll encounter a lot of small streams,” she says, as she opens the map in front of herself, “and valleys. But we should be there before evening.”

“I thought you said the route was shorter than yesterday,” points out Draco, sipping his tea.

She nods. “It is, but it’s late today, it’s almost midday,” she replies.

He recoils at that piece of information. “Midday? Why didn’t you wake me up?” he grunts.

“You needed to sleep,” she replies simply. “You can’t trek without a proper rest.”

He looks at her bent head, and then at her map, and at her half-finished breakfast under her map. He stretches a hand forward and grabs the map, pulling it away from under her nose.

“Hey!” she protests, as he folds it away.

“You know the way,” he says. “Finish your breakfast.”

She stares at him, surprised. “I’m full,” she murmurs.

“You’re most certainly not,” he replies calmly. “Eat, then I’ll give it back, but you can’t trek without a proper meal.”

She looks like a flabbergasted child as she lowers her head, nods obediently, and starts eating again. Lovegood murmurs a, “Well done! Well done indeed!” but Draco isn’t sure he’s talking to him or to his bag.

The trail that day is always in the open. The sun is shining with all its might at that altitude, and Draco isn’t sure if the hot sunrays are a blessing or a curse. When a cloud hides the sun for a few minutes, he understand that it’s definitely a blessing, because the temperatures drop until his teeth are chattering.

They don’t stop until the sun is back in the sky, and then they rest for a few minutes on some gigantic rocks near a stream; they’re covered in moss and are comfortable to lie upon.

Potter sits on the rock next to him, and he can see her shake and try to rub her gloved hands together to help with the cold. Her lips are blue and her freckles seem bigger than usual for some obscure reason.

The reason is not obscure at all. He’s just sitting so close to her that he can make out every detail of her face as if he’s using a Magnifying Charm. He slides further on the rock, until his side brushes against hers. He doesn’t even think about it, she’s cold, he’s cold, why do they have to suffer alone rather than get warm together?

He slides his arm over her shoulders and pull her to him. If she’s surprised, she doesn’t show it. She just slithers her arm around his waist and leans her head against his chest; her hair tickles his neck as he rubs his palm over her upper arm to try to create more heat.

She breathes in her cupped palm to warm her nose and closes her eyes.

Draco places his chin over her head and looks in the distance. A solitary yak is grazing the short grass, behind it the snow-capped mountains look beautiful and scary at the same time.

They continue for most of the day in silence. Lovegood is still walking ahead of them, but now Potter treks next to Draco. Sometimes, he helps her with a particularly tall rock, some others she lends him a hand to climb a steep hill. He squeezes her more strongly than he probably should, but she squeezes him back, so he knows she’s okay with that.

They reach Lobuche before it gets dark. The temperatures have dropped again and Draco feels the icy air cutting into his lungs every time he tries to catch his breath. He can’t wait for a hot meal, a Cleaning Spell to be performed on himself, and cocooning himself in the covers once more.

“Let’s ask if they have rooms available,” says Potter as they reach a long, ugly building.

“Why, Ginny dear?” asks Lovegood gently. “Don’t you like our tents?”

For the first time, Draco is glad Lovegood is talking at all.

Potter looks at him and hunches her shoulders. “It’s for you, Xenophilius,” she says wearily, “and for Draco. I’m sure you’d be more comfortable in the lodge.”

“I’m not going to sleep with the Muggles, thank you very much,” says Draco darkly. “I’d rather sleep in our tent.”  He raises his chin haughtily. “It’s not half as bad as I expected anyway,” he adds lightly.

Potter looks at him, then at Lovegood, surprised, and probably a bit unsettled by that sudden mutiny in her crew. She can’t do anything else except nodding though, and the three of them head to the small camping site at the far end of the village. There’s nobody there, now, so they take seconds to set up their tents, and then they’re hurrying to the lodge for their dinner.

More rice, more curried yak, more milk tea, but Draco is getting used to the flavours, and he’s too tired to complain, and too hungry to leave even the smallest morsel in his plate. Potter eats everything, too, he checks on her and she makes a good show of finishing up to the last grain of rice.

“Are you sure you’ll be alright alone in your tent?” she asks Lovegood as the old fool uses some fried bread to clean his plate. “Xenophilius, you’re welcome in the bigger tent, you know? We can all bunk together. I’m sure the Heating Charm will be stronger if we stick together.”

“No, Ginny dear,” he assures her gently. “I’ll be more than fine. I want to do my daily inventory of my bag before I turn in, and it might take me a while.”

“You’re not going to disturb us,” she says anxiously. “Please, Xenophilius.”

The old man smiles and pats her outstretched hands. “Oh, Ginny dear,” he says, “don’t you worry for me, I’ll be a tent away, literally.”

“But—”

“Leave him be,” Draco cuts her off. “If he’s more comfortable like that, let him have his private tent.” He compliments himself for the calm tone of voice he’s using, and for the good points he’s making, because in reality he just wants to tell Potter that he doesn’t want to bunk with Lovegood, only with her.

Potter looks at Lovegood with eyes wide, then, she finally abides to their decision. “Okay,” she sighs, “but if anything happens, and I mean _anything_ , you come to us, okay?”

“Of course, Ginny dear,” he smiles at her. “You, too.”

She nods and finally smiles back, but it’s still a worried smile and it doesn’t reach her eyes.

They stay there for a while, in the warm dining room of the lodge. It’s filled with tired trekkers from all over the world, and Draco wonders if there are any wizards at all, and if they know that the three of them are magic folks, too. Nobody seems to be looking at them, though, so he dismisses that thought. He focuses on the dessert that Lovegood ordered for them, a small pile of Chocolate _Barfi_ , which look as delicious as English brownies and taste even better.

He has two, while Potter nibbles at one without much interest before announcing that she’s going back to the tent. She stands over the table and plants a kiss on Lovegood’s hairy cheek, and then leaves without even glancing at Draco.

He stares at her dark red head as she walks out of the lodge and braves the cold to get to the tent.

“She’s going to write to Harry,” says Lovegood, nodding. “The poor man was completely devastated when he was forbidden to come himself.” He lowers his voice. “He tried to send his sons, but even regular Aurors on duty are seen as a menace in this country.” He sighs. “Ginny dear is a brave woman.”

Draco stares at the door through which Ginny dear has left and nods. “She is,” he agrees.

Lovegood pats his shoulder and stands up from the table. “Good night, Draco,” he says cheerfully. “Sleep tight, and don’t let bed’s bugs bite.”

He sighs warily and nods. “Night, Lovegood.”

The old man sings a tune as he makes his way towards the door, he bumps into a Sherpa woman and grabs her hand before making her twirl around. The woman giggles at him and laughs with her party as Lovegood walks out of the door.

Draco waits. He orders some Nepalese milk tea and another of those Chocolate _Barfi_ , and he stares at the people. He doesn’t want to go back to the tent while she’s writing to her husband. He wonders what she’s writing to him about. He wonders if she mentions him at all.

The dining room empties slowly, and Draco is hesitant. But then the owner glares at him, even if it’s barely eight in the evening, and he stands, leaves a few Nepalese rupees on the table, and walks out.

The cold wind hits his face sharply, and for a moment he is left there staggering. But he grabs the hood behind his jacket and pushes it down over his face as he makes his way to the tents. It takes him a minute to find his own, but when he does, he hurries inside and closes the flappy door tightly at his back.

The light is on and Potter is lying on her bed. She kicked off her shoes, and laid her jacket on a camping chair. She’s shaking and sobbing, and her muffled cries fill the air as she hides her face in her hands. The pieces of parchments that compose the letter to her husband are scattered on her bed and on the floor; the last paper is left unfinished and, as Draco kneels to pick them up, he can see the point where she truncated her sentence.

_Harry, I think Draco is right, they’re dead. They can’t possibly be alive. They can’t, not in this…_

He presses his lips together and places the pieces of parchment on a small table. When he turns to look at her, she’s still crying, apparently unaware of his presence.

He swallows and walks slowly to her, convincing himself that he doesn’t have to do it, that he can change direction and go to his own bed at any moment. He doesn’t though, he walks to her bed and sits next to her, placing a hand on her quivering back.

She starts and looks up; her eyes seem even bigger now that they’re filled with tears. Then she closes them and lays her head back on the pillow, crying out loud now.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, his thumb caressing her back, his other hand going to brush away the tears from her beautiful face. “I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t know why he says that, but he feels like he has to. He feels like he is the cause of all her pain with his continuous proclamations of their children’s deaths. And if at first he found her good faith in their fate irritating. Now he wishes that she’d still believe that they are all alive and well, somewhere up Mount Everest.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. “I’m sorry.” He bends down until his lips, chapped for the cold, are against her forehead. She’s always so smooth and warm, and her hair tickles his nose as he presses a kiss against her skin. “I’m sorry.” He doesn’t know how many times he repeats the apology, but they’re enough to trail kisses all over her face. He dries her tears with his lips and descends until he finds her mouth. “I’m sorry,” he says once more before kissing her gently.

She lets out a sob but, before he can tilt his head back to check if she wants him to stop, she’s grabbing the front of his jacket, holding on for dear life, and then she’s kissing him back.

He can feel how desperate she is when their teeth clash together, like two fumbling teenagers. He bites softly on her bottom lip and presses his nose in her cheek as he turns around. She scoots a bit on the bed, and he lies next to her, then half on top of her, his hands search for hers and, when he finds them, he pins them to either side of her face. And he just kisses her and kisses her, for minutes, hours, days, probably. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t care.

Being close to her is like taking an illegal potion. It makes things better. It wipes away the harsh reality. It lessens the pain. And when they’ll part, it’ll make him long for more.

But he doesn’t want to think about that.

When he has to come up for air, he lets her lips go and hides his face in her long hair. It’s soft and smells good. He takes a deep breath and feels her hands slide from under his grip. They skim over his clothed stomach and down, towards his trousers.

Her breath becomes laboured all of a sudden, as she works on the buttons, as if the task is much more difficult than it actually is. When she slides the last one out of its hole and slips her hands inside, he groans in her locks.

She’s good, she knows what she’s doing, and Draco becomes hard and ready in a matter of seconds. She touches him where he is most sensitive, and uses a perfect pressure to drive him completely insane with need.

He has to grit his teeth not to come in her hands. He pushes his fists in her hair and raises himself on his hands and knees. Her face is flushed and her eyes are only half opened, but she’s not crying anymore.

He swallows and grabs her upper arm, pulling and pushing her, until she rolls on her stomach and then he presses her against the bed. He tries to reach for the buttons on her front but stops when he notices that her trousers are loose around her waist.

He told her she’s not eating enough; he feels smug for the fact that he’s right.

He grabs the hem of her trousers and pull them down her legs, along with her knickers, and she takes a sharp breath that might be half a sob. He can’t stop now, though, he’s too far gone.

He lies on top of her, grabs his cock and guides it into her. She stiffens slightly under him, her hands grasping the covers; she’s not as wet as the night before, and Draco takes a little more fumbling to enter her.

“I’m sorry,” it’s all he can repeat as she lets out a painful whimper. “I’m sorry.” He doesn’t even know what he’s sorry about anymore.

He kisses her temple and the side of the head, gathers her hair up in one hand and slides the other one underneath her stomach. He tries to press himself as tightly as he can against her back as he starts to drive into her. All he sees is the red of her hair and the corner of her scrunched up eye; all he feels is her ragged movements against the hand he pressed against her belly.

His head is light as he thrusts into her; he feels his orgasm build up in his stomach, too quick and too slow at the same time. He doesn’t stop, jerking his pelvis against her arse, their trousers are in the way, making everything much more difficult, but he can’t stop now.

He presses his open mouth against her temple when he comes, biting lightly, kissing, breathing her in.

She doesn’t move, she keeps breathing hard, but even in his dazed state he understands that she didn’t come. He feels that’s incredibly cruel of him, and brings his hand lower, near where his cock his still buried inside of her.

He helps her seek out her own orgasm with steady, slow circles, and when she comes, she tightens around him so beautifully that for a moment he feels like he can start all over.

It’s just wishful thinking, though, so he slides out of her with a lewd sound that echoes brutally in the silence of the tent. He lies down on his back and tries to catch his breath. He’s not surprised when she rolls over and presses herself against him. He wraps an arm around her shoulder as she grabs a blanket from the foot of the bed and covers them up, and then she leans her head on his chest, bringing her hand to play with the buttons of his jacket, and they breathe raggedly for long minutes.

He doesn’t even notice that his thumb is drawing circles over her upper arm, he doesn’t understand that his other hand moved to his chest, too, touching her fingers only so slightly.

He thinks she’s going to fall asleep soon. He doesn’t think she’ll get up to pull up her trousers or shed them completely. He thinks they’ll just fall asleep like that.

Therefore, he is surprised when she speaks.

“I didn’t even say a proper goodbye,” she whispers.

He holds his breath, not sure he wants to hear what she needs to talk about.

“When she left,” she continues. “They booked the Portkey so early in the morning. I told her… I told her to wake me up, but she didn’t.” She sniffles and Draco automatically tightens his hand on her arm. “She left me a note, on the kitchen table. With lots of smiley faces at the bottom.” She swallows, and he’s grateful that she hasn’t started crying yet. “She said that she loved me, that two months would fly away and that she wanted to go to the beach with me when she got back.” She sniffles again. “I… I can’t believe that I didn’t even say goodbye to her.”

Draco doesn’t comment. He feels like nothing he could say would help her right now.

“She used to put smiley faces everywhere, you know?” she goes on. “When she was home from one of her expeditions with the Scamanders, I mean. I would wake up to a mountain of pieces of parchments everywhere. The kitchen table, the cupboards, my bedside table… And hearts. She would put hearts everywhere. James and Albus would be so mad when they opened their packed lunches at the Ministry and found their sandwiches buried under her hearts. They said that the other Aurors laughed at them.” She sniffles, but then there’s also a little chuckle there, he can feel it. “They never told her, though. I told them to tell her that she didn’t need to put all those hearts in their lunchboxes, but they were afraid of hurting her feelings.”

She brings her hand to her face, brushing away tears almost jerkily. “They loved her,” she says. “Albus and James. When she announced that she wanted to become a Magizoologist like her godmother, they tried to dissuade her. They didn’t want her to spend most of her time away.” She sniffs again. “But she just had to go. Had to. She couldn’t stay still, she couldn’t stay inside. She just wanted to see the whole world.” She brings her fingers back to his, over his chest, and he can feel the tears on her tips. “And I didn’t even get to say goodbye to her,” she sobs. “My baby, my little princess, and I didn’t even get to tell her how much I loved her.”

She buries her face in his chest, helped by all the layers of clothing he’s wearing. He brings his hand to her head and caresses her hair, his eyes are wide and he’s staring at the ceiling.

Now, he knows what to say. He doesn’t want her to know, but he can’t help himself. He know it’ll help, and she’ll feel better, and she’ll stop crying. That’s all he needs. “At least, it’s not your fault,” he whispers soothingly.

“What isn’t?” she sniffles softly.

He swallows. It hurts to talk about it. “That your daughter left,” he says, his voice throaty. “At least it’s not your fault. At least… at least she didn’t go because she hated you. At least she didn’t leave you because she couldn’t stand living with you a minute longer.”

He looks up at her as she sits up. She furrows her brow and her eyes seem confused as she stares down at him. “What are you talking about?” she asks, brushing away the tears as if she wants to clear her head.

Draco sits up, too, and leans back against the headboard of the bed. “I wasn’t…” It’s hard, but he presses his lips together for a moment before continuing, “I wasn’t the best of fathers,” he admits. “Scorpius and I… we had a stormy relationship. I didn’t want him to become a Healer—Malfoys don’t work, don’t need to work, it’s demeaning—and I didn’t want him to hang out with his mates in the weekends, because they had not been Slytherins back at school. And I didn’t want him to stay out late every evening.” He shakes his head; the subtle pain that he had hoped Potter’s presence would quell comes back in full swing. “I spent so much time telling him what I didn’t want him to do, and not enough telling him that I was proud of what he did. That I was proud he was the best Healer to graduate his year, that I was proud that he would always come home and be polite to his parents, that I was proud he was such a good boy, with his head on his shoulders…” He feels Potter’s eyes on him, but he doesn’t look at her. “And then, one day, he answers to an advert on the Prophet,” he adds bitterly. “The Scamanders are looking for a Healer to join them in an adventure. And… God, I’ve never screamed as much as the day he told me he was leaving. But he just… you could see it in his eyes, he just didn’t want to stay at home with me any longer… He hated me. He hated me, and now my wife hates me, too. She says it’s all my fault, that my son died because I couldn’t love him enough.”

“You’re wrong.” Her voice is frantic, and when Draco turns to look at her, she’s looking back at him with eyes wide and an upset expression over her face. She’s probably not used to such familial horror stories. What with her perfect family, perfect husband, perfect children. He is only upsetting her. Not making her feel better.

He can’t help smiling and stretching a hand to cup her cheek. “You’re sweet, Ginny Potter,” he whispers, “but my wife is right.”

She wiggles free of his hand and grabs his jacket forcefully as she kneels next to him. “You’re wrong,” she repeats. “Oh, God! He didn’t leave with them because he hated you! Merlin! Is that what he told you?”

Draco darkens slightly. “He didn’t have to,” he murmurs.

“He didn’t!” she insists, her tone almost frantic. “He left because he loved her!”

Draco blinks at her, of all the things he expected her to say, this was the very last one. “What?” he says. “He loved _who_?”

“Lily!” she says, her brown eyes still wide. “Oh, God! She told him she was going to Nepal to look for the Yeti this spring and he… he just decided to go with her on the spur of the moment! She was so thrilled, they both were. Scorpius couldn’t shut up about it, every time he came over.”

Draco can’t understand what she’s saying. He hears the words, but they don’t make sense. “Came over?” he repeats some of them in hope that she’ll explain them to him.

“To Grimmauld Place,” she insists. “He was there every day when she was home, right after his shift at St Mungo’s.” She sighs tiredly. “Oh, God, he said you two didn’t talk, but I didn’t expect that he wouldn’t tell you about Lily.”

Draco swallows, but he finds his mouth dry. Potter is still grasping his jacket, but he feels completely dazed now. He cannot wrap his head around what she’s saying.

Scorpius loved a girl, and she was Harry Potter’s daughter. Scorpius loved her so much he would embark in a mortal adventure with her. Scorpius left because of her, not because of Draco. Scorpius left because he was in love with a girl, not because he hated his father.

He needs to know more. He looks at Potter again; she looks so white her hair stands out like flames on her head. “How long… how long have they been…”

“Seeing each other?”

He nods.

“Thirteen months,” she replies. “They had their first anniversary here in Nepal. Luna wrote that they went to a temple to get blessed, and she snapped a picture of them dressed in typical Nepalese clothes, but she hadn’t developed it yet when she wrote.”

Draco closes his eyes. Knowing that his son didn’t leave because of him is refreshing. Knowing that he would keep his relationship with a girl secret for more than a year makes his heart bleed.

“Why wouldn’t he tell me?” he whispers to himself, rather than her.

He doesn’t know why he says that anyway. He knows why.

Potter swallows. “You said you spent too much time telling him what you didn’t want him to do,” she whispers back. “Probably he didn’t want you to tell him that you didn’t want him to go out with Harry Potter’s daughter.”

And Potter knows, too.

He looks at her. She’s right. She knows she is, and she knows that he knows that she is. He smiles sadly at her. “How is she?” he asks. “Is she like you? I hope she is.” He wishes Scorpius was there to hear him saying that because he really thinks it, too.

Potter smiles back at him. “People say that she looks like me at her age,” she replies, “but she’s also sweeter than I ever was.” She bites on her bottom lip. “And smart. She’s very smart.”

He places his hands on hers, still clasped over his jacket. “The perfect girl,” he says, and he really means it. Scorpius is intelligent and if he chose her, there must be a valid reason.

She shrugs a shoulder slowly, but she’s still smiling. “But I’m her mother,” she admits. “I might be biased.”

He smiles back, wraps an arm around her shoulders and guides her down, until she’s leaning against his chest again. He holds her close to him. “How did they meet?” he asks softly.

“At St Mungo’s last year,” she replies. “Lily got Vanishing Sickness coming back from Australia, and she was placed in Scorpius’ care. It was love at first sight.” She pauses. “Well, the moments she was visible, at any rate.”

Draco chuckles softly at her joke.

“She even stopped taking her potion the second week, because she complained that she was Healing too quickly, and didn’t want to leave that cute Healer who was taking care of her…” she murmurs.

Draco can see the scene playing in his head. “She’s a feisty one,” he jokes quietly.

She hums in reply. “In the end, he told her that he would ask her out as soon as she was dismissed, but that she had to keep taking her potion,” she goes on, her voice now is calm, almost amused. “He brought her to the beach on their first date, and the next day she couldn’t shut up about it.” She moves her head and her hair tickles his neck. “By the end of the following, week they were together.”

“Are they happy?” he asks, and he’s aware that he’s talking in the present.

“As if they’re under the constant influence of the Felix Felicis.”

“Good,” he murmurs. “That’s good.”

She grasps his jacket again. “You’re going to talk to him when we find them,” she whispers frantically. “Promise me, you’ll talk to him. You’ll put things right between the two of you.”

“I…”

“Promise me.”

He swallows, as he grasps her hand forcefully. “If they’re alive,” he murmurs. “I promise.” It’s the first time that he doesn’t snap at her that they are dead, that he doesn’t tell her that he will never be able to talk to his son again, nor she to her daughter.

He hugs her to his chest and feels the weak sparkle of hope warm up his heart. It feels wonderful and scary at the same time.


	4. Sasmita

When he wakes up the following morning, Potter is still lying next to him; she’s still sleeping deeply, her breathing regular against his chest. He looks down at her, in the dim light of that cold morning that filters through the seams of the tent.

Her hair is mussed and her auburn eyelashes rest prettily on the curve of her cheekbone. Her pink lips are parted as she breathes. She looks very young and defenceless like that. She looks very beautiful, too.

He smiles softly. Now, he’s dying to see Lily, the girl his son has fallen in love with.

He still remembers what Potter looked like back at Hogwarts, although he hasn't told her that. She was indeed very pretty, even though his eyesight was too clouded with hate back then to notice, but if her daughter looks anything like her, then Scorpius is one lucky young man.

Potter pushes herself against his side, and her eyelids flutter slightly, as if she’s either waking up or dreaming. Draco’s arm is trapped underneath her and he can’t feel his fingers anymore. It’s the first time in years that he’s slept so close to another person. His bed at the Manor is so vast that sometimes he feels like he’s sleeping alone, and ever since Scorpius has left for Nepal, he has been sleeping alone. Astoria is too angry with him to share his bed.

Potter worms her head closer to his neck and he leans his chin pensively on the top of her head.

He feels torn about his wife. On one hand, he can’t wait to tell her the real reason why Scorpius went to Nepal. See her face brighten up again, apologise to him for her misplaced anger. On the other, he cannot believe that his son would keep his real reasons even from his mother. They must have done a lousy job as parents if he couldn’t find the courage to let them know about this girl he loves and that he would follow to the other side of the world.

Draco doesn’t want to think about it, though. It hurts, and the possibility that he might not have a chance to make things right with his son hurts even more.

He turns his head a little towards Potter and presses his lips to her forehead. “Ginny,” he calls her softly, her first name rolling unfamiliarly on his tongue.

She hums in reply, and places her hand on his neck.

“Ginny,” he repeats.

“What?” she asks, her voice slurred with sleep.

He smiles. “The sun is already shining,” he tells her. “We should get up.”

She hums again, but doesn’t move nor reply for a bit, until he tries to worm his arm from underneath her. “It’s only three hours,” she complains softly, grasping his shoulder to keep herself anchored to him.

“What is?” he asks confused.

“The trek to Gorakshep,” she replies. “It takes only three hours from here.”

He settles down again, curling his arm once more around her waist as she wakes up slowly.

Gorakshep is their last stop; tomorrow is going to be a very different day. They’ll need heavier clothes, and they’ll leave their backpacks behind, at the lodge, as they go around like a group of disoriented Doxies, looking for something that might not be there.

He swallows at the thought, and brings his lips close to her forehead again. “Don’t you want to get there?” he asks softly, hoping for an enthusiastic reply about how she can’t wait to be there and see her daughter, finally.

She sniffles instead and replies, “I don’t know,” in a whisper. “I think you’re right, Draco. They can’t be alive. Even if the Yeti didn’t kill them, they couldn’t possibly survive out there without their wands and their equipment.” She sniffles again. “And the moment we’ll set foot in Gorakshep, what feels like a horrible nightmare will become the dreadful reality.” She brushes away the tears. “Oh, God, can you think what will happen to Xenophilius when he finds out that they’re all dead?”

He feels guilty for having destroyed all the faith that she had at the beginning of that trip.

“They could be alive,” he finds himself saying before he can stop himself. “We don’t know what happened to them, maybe… maybe the Yeti is a big, cuddly teddy bear of a monster and they’re safe and sound in a cave with him…”

She raises her head from his chest and looks at him, lips parted in surprise for the unexpected humour.

He smiles awkwardly at her. “Or maybe they found a shelter somewhere,” he adds. “Or maybe, they’re in Gorakshep. Maybe they found them and we don’t know because nobody could tell us.” He tucks some of her locks behind her ear. “Maybe Harry and Astoria know already.”

Her eyes fill with tears once more, but even though Draco is ready to brush them away, they don’t spill over the corners. She brings her head closer to his and presses a soft kiss to his lips. “Thank you,” she whispers.

He rubs his hands on her back and down her arms as she lets him go and pushes herself back. “We should get ready,” she says, sitting on her heels. “Let’s go find something to eat… we should pack and go to Gorakshep.”

He nods and gives her a small smile, then stares at her as she gets up from the bed, and looks for her warmest clothes to get ready for the day.

Lovegood is already waiting for them in the dining room of the lodge. His tent is packed, his backpack is on the floor, and his breakfast lies untouched in front of him as he examines, once again, the contents of his bag.

When Draco spots him amongst the Muggles, he groans and grabs Ginny’s wrist to keep her from going to the old man. “Why is he always checking what he’s got in his bag?” he asks in an annoyed whisper. “What’s so important that he can’t just put it away until he’s back in England?”

Ginny offers him a small smile. “He must have his reasons,” she assures him. “He’s just… you know…”

“Completely and utterly out of his mind?” he supplies when she seems to falter at finding a good way of describing him.

She sighs. “He’s just an old man,” she says diplomatically, “who might have lost his whole family in these mountains.”

Draco swallows and nods curtly; he releases her wrist and lets her go ahead to greet him. He stares at them as they hug and sit and Ginny orders two more breakfasts for the two of them. Finally, he makes his way towards them.

“Good morning, Draco.” Lovegood greets him brightly, standing to hug him. “Did you sleep well?”

Draco tries to make the hug as short and less-than-awkward as possible, but Lovegood squeezes him as if he is his long lost son.

“Yeah,” he replies, glancing at Ginny. “Slept well. You?”

“Like a babe,” Xenophilius says cheerfully, letting him go and sitting down at the table again.

They bring their breakfasts and Draco sits next to Ginny and stares at her as she chats with Lovegood. Her voice is cheerful, but he doesn’t know if she’s faking it or if their little chat has actually improved her mood. He hopes it’s the latter.

“It shouldn’t be too long today, should it?” says Lovegood as he finally eats his breakfast.

“No,” she replies, “three hours tops. Then…” She looks from Lovegood to Draco and back again. “I think we should go through the things they found. See if there’s everything, there should be four wands, trekking equipment and, hopefully, their notes.”

“Oh, yes, my Luna always takes very thorough notes during her trips,” says Lovegood seriously.

Ginny nods. “Good,” she replies. “Yes, she would need them, wouldn’t she? For the book, I mean.”

Draco furrows his brow; one more thing that he doesn’t know about that trip, one more thing that he hasn’t bothered asking to Scorpius. “What book?”

Ginny looks at him, slightly surprised that he wouldn’t know, probably. “Oh, they… they want to re-write _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_ ,” she explains, “expand it, update it. That’s why they’re constantly travelling lately.”

Lovegood nods profusely. “They’re looking for the animals,” he says, “the fantastic beasts mentioned in the book. They’re doing good, too, aren’t they, Ginny dear?”

Ginny smiles softly. “Yes, they probably need a couple more trips to Africa, then they can start jotting down the first draft.” 

“Scorpius and Lily will be mentioned, too,” continues Lovegood. “Luna says they’re of invaluable help.” He looks at Ginny and smiles. “She can’t stop praising how good Lily is at following a track. Even in the dark of a forest! At night! I bet it was her the one who found the Yeti!” He turns to look at Draco and his smile turns to a grin. “And Scorpius has an encyclopaedic knowledge of edible plants and their venomous counterparts. And he’s a master with potions, Luna says.” He looks down at his tea and nods before going back to eat his breakfast.

Draco can’t let him end it like that, though. Everybody, even this crazy old man, seems to know more than he does about his son. “And then?” he asks frantically. “What else did your daughter say?”

Lovegood raises his head again and looks at him, he looks pleased that he finally has Draco’s undivided attention. “Many things,” he says gently. “That he’s a caring, sweet, intelligent young man, just like his father.”

Draco darkens slightly. “She must have mistaken him for someone else’s son, then,” he grunts, as he goes back to his breakfast.

“Oh, no,” says Lovegood seriously. “She’s got a very good memory; she never mistakes anything, my Luna.”

Draco rolls his eyes, then Loony Lovegood is just stupider than he thought. Weird for someone who ended up in Ravenclaw.

Ginny worms her hand over his arm and grabs his wrist under her fingers. “She told us, you know,” she says softly. “Luna told us everything.”

He glances at her and sees that she’s smiling. “What are you talking about?” he asks less gently than he intended.

Her smile doesn’t falter. “When she was kept in the dungeons at the Manor,” she replies, “she said you would go down there to talk to her.”

“They sent me there,” he grunts, his cheeks warming up. “To check on the prisoners.”

“She said you’d bring her food and even got her chocolate once,” she goes on.

He grits his teeth. She’s bringing back memories that he thought he had forgotten. “Well, we couldn’t let them starve to death.”

“She said you brought her news of her father, and of Harry and Hermione and Ron,” she continues. “She said that you’d sit on the other side of the door to keep her company for hours.”

Ginny leans her head on his shoulder and wraps her arms around his torso. He keeps still and rigid like a rock, though.

“Ron didn’t believe her,” she whispers gently. “He suggested we took her to St Mungo’s to have her checked.”

Draco snorts. “Weasley is an idiot,” he grunts, “but Lovegood definitely needs a good check-up.”

“Listen, she only told us four and Xenophilius,” she tells him gently. “You don’t have to fret. Your secret is safe with us.”

He darkens slightly, but then she moves his arm around a little, and next thing he knows, his hugging her and she’s resting her head on his chest. “What secret?” he growls.

“That you’re not as cold-hearted as you want everybody to believe,” she whispers.

He sighs and nods. “Okay, but if this reaches Nott or Zabini or Parkinson, I swear that I’ll start the rumour that your brother is into having sex with centaurs.” He says the first thing that comes to mind and even he is a bit unsettled by it.

“Deal,” she replies with a little chuckle before she tightens her arms around his chest and squeezes him gently.

They finish their breakfast and fasten their backpacks on their backs. Draco feels heavier than usual. He’s wearing more layers than he has ever done in his trip so far, the air is colder and more rarefied than ever before, and he feels sluggish as he walks out of the lodge and helps Ginny to find their trail.

It isn’t difficult, there are signs that point towards Gorakshep, and most of the people are going in that direction anyway. Some others are coming back.

The trekkers that want to get to Everest Base Camp have already departed from Lobuche, but the three of them don’t want to go there today, they’ll stop at the lodge and go through their children’s belongings.

The trail continues gently up the valley at the beginning, but as soon as they leave the lodge behind, they find themselves walking into thick snow. Luckily, the clothes and shoes are water proofed with some strong spell, because otherwise, they would freeze their feet, and that’s something they’d rather avoid.

Suddenly the path goes up steeply, and Draco has to grab the rocks in front of him to push himself upwards and follow his companions.

He can see that Lovegood is finally feeling the pressure of the altitude and the fatigue of the trekking, because he is slowing down and stopping much more often than before. Ginny slides on the snow in front of him a couple of times, and Draco has to catch her arm before she ends flat on the ground.

“Thank you,” she murmurs tiredly, steadying herself.

“How long before we get there?” asks Draco, as he looks at her face. “Your lips are all blue.”

She looks away from him and ahead of them. “That’s Pumori,” she says, pointing at a mountain at their left, “and that’s Nuptse.” She points at the peak that towers over them almost menacingly. “Half an hour, I think,” she sighs.

“Do you want to stop? Rest for a bit?” he asks her.

She shakes her head. “I want to get to the lodge,” she says, “warm up a little.”

He circles her shoulders with his arm and nods as he rubs her forcefully. “Let’s go,” he says, releasing her.

They keep going and the supposed half an hour turns out to be closer to fifty minutes and definitely feels like three hours. In the end, though, they finally find the dry lakebed that is the place where Gorakshep lies upon. There is a fistful of lodges and that’s all, many of the trekkers that they’ve encountered in Lobuche are making their way to the buildings, but the three of them can’t stop there.

The Minister for Magic of Nepal has booked them two rooms in the magical guesthouse. A double for him and Lovegood, probably, and another for Ginny. He doesn’t think Lovegood will mind if Draco bunks with Ginny instead.

“This one!” exclaims Lovegood suddenly as they reach the last one of the buildings. It looks like a shack but, when he pushes the door open, a comforting warmth reaches Draco’s nose and the three of them hurry inside.

It’s called the N'yānō Vijārḍalē Lodge, the Warm Wizard Lodge, and Draco hopes that it really is going to warm them up.

A short Nepalese man hurries to welcome them. “Ah Potter!” he says brightly. “You arrived!”

Ginny nods warmly, her lips are already returning to their pretty pink colour. “Mr Acharya,” she says, “hello. We… we were booked two rooms, I think…”

“Yes, yes,” he exclaims, shaking their hands forcefully. “Welcome to Gorakshep! Good trek? Hungry?”

“Wonderful trek,” says Lovegood, accompanying his words with grand gestures of his hands. “Wonderful views of the mountains, too. Oh, at some points I thought I was going to faint for all the beauty.” He nods. “And so hungry, good man, so hungry!”

“Yes, but we’d like to put our things in our rooms, first and… do you… do you have…” Her voice falters and Draco closes his hand on her shoulder to make her feel that she’s not alone.

The man nods solemnly. “Their things,” he says, wiggling his dark eyebrows on his dark skin. “Yes, their things in your rooms.”

Ginny nods, but she’s at a loss for words now.

“Thank you,” intervenes Draco. “Can you take us there?”

“Sure, sure,” says the man seriously. He draws out two keys from his pockets and nods towards a staircase. “We very sorry,” he says as they climb up, “we looked everything.”

“Everywhere,” mutters Draco.

“Everywhere,” he says, “yes, we looked everywhere. Nothing.” He turns to look at them on the stairs; Draco can see his eyes going wide as he lowers his voice. “ _Himamānav_ ,” he whispers theatrically.

Ginny searches the wall for support and takes a sharp breath.

“Listen, why don’t you let us investigate and decide what happened to them,” says Draco sharply. “I’m sure we’ll do a more thorough job than your Aurors.”

The man looks at him, but seems to have understood only half of the words; he nods and smiles and turns to keep climbing.

They’re led through a small corridor and past some rooms, then up another flight of stairs, and finally on a small landing with only three doors. “Bathroom,” says the man, pointing to the door in front them. Then he fumbles with the keys and opens the door on the left. “Lady,” he says before going to the other door. “Men.”

“Thank you,” says Ginny, her voice soft. She walks into the room that the man has declared as hers, and he can hear her backpack hitting the floor with a loud thud, then more noises, as she probably digs around the things she has found in there. Lovegood disappears into the other room, and he, too, seems to shed his backpack and undo his jacket.

Draco hesitates. For a moment, he doesn’t know what he wants to do. He bits his bottom lip and imagines that Scorpius’ things must have been put with Lily’s. They surely shared a room there, the guesthouse owner must have known.

He walks into Ginny’s room and stops on the door.

She’s kneeling on the floor, hair in disarray and face frantic as she opens the backpacks that someone has placed on a spare bed. She’s taking out clothes and pieces of parchment, sleeping bags torn into pieces, and wands.

He takes a sharp breath as he recognises Scorpius’ wand, next to a shorter, slightly chapped one. There’s a dark stain on the handle and he looks away, afraid it might be blood.

“There’s a sleeping bag,” whimpers Ginny, without looking at him. “It’s all torn… all torn into pieces… oh, God! It looks like some animal, some big animal… and some of Lily’s notes… I can’t… I can’t read them, they’re all wet. Why did they let them get wet? Why? I can’t… I can’t read them… but it’s her notes… she put smiley faces everywhere… everywhere… see? But I can’t… I can’t…” She starts crying, hiding her face in one of Lily’s t-shirts. There’s a dragon on it, it moves around and opens its mouth to send up flames, and underneath there’s the word ‘Romania’ in red letters.

Draco lets his backpack fall to the floor as well; he walks to her and crouches near her body. “Ginny,” he says softly, “listen. Don’t look at them now.” He places a hand on her shoulder and squeezes gently. “Let’s go downstairs and have something hot to eat. We’re tired and hungry. We need a bit of rest before we sort them out, okay? Just a couple of hours, then we’ll go through them together. Sounds good?”

She sobs loudly, and when she raises her head the t-shirt is all wet and the dragon looks indignant for the treatment received. “They’re all ruined… you can’t… you can’t read them…” she sobs.

“We’ll go through them together,” he soothes her. “We’ll use spells and we’ll decipher every word, even if it takes us a week.” He cups her cheeks and makes her look at him. “Okay? Okay, Ginny?”

She sniffles and he brushes away her tears. Then he lowers his head to hers and kisses her gently. “Okay?” he repeats.

She nods, using the back of her hand to dry her face. “Okay,” she finally concedes, her voice broken.

“Good,” he says, smiling. “Let’s go.”

She lets him drag her downstairs, and eats everything they are given without complaining.

Draco tells her that he’s very proud of her.

When they sit together on the spare bed in Ginny’s room, they have their children’s belongings all spread out around them.

Lovegood is sitting in his own room, with the Scamanders’ stuff scattered everywhere. He’s making much more noise than the two of them, and he’s laughing and repeating his daughter’s name every time he digs up something that he finds absolutely hilarious. Lorcan and Lysander’s drawings for example. Or a small jar of Dirigible Plum conserve that he remembers he gave to Scamander when they left.

Ginny doesn’t seem to hear him, though. Or if she does, she doesn’t seem to want to comment. She’s spent the whole meal staring at her food, barely looking up, barely responding to either Draco or Lovegood. The only moment when she’s perked up her ears is when Draco asked the guesthouse owner what he knows.

“Very nice people,” he says seriously, as if that is an important detail. “Always smiley.”

“Yes, but what happened?” presses Draco. “When did they disappear?”

The man nods dramatically. “I told them pay attention,” he says. “ _Himamānav_ likes wizard flesh, more than Muggle flesh. But they don’t care.” He sighs. “They bring children up here and go look for wizard-eating beast.”

Draco can’t help thinking that he does have a point.

“They arrive before last snowstorm of season,” he goes on. “I remember it was big snowstorm. We have to close guesthouse for two days, everybody inside for two days. Children get crazy inside for two days. Then, when snowstorm passes, they go looking for _himamānav_ , like that!” He shakes his head for good measure. “I tell them dangerous, but they don’t listen.”

“So they just went and looked for the Yeti and never came back?” asks Draco seriously. “Right after the snowstorm?”

The man shakes his head. “No,” he replies, dragging out the ‘o’ almost comically, “they go and come back, five days. They go up towards Everest, and come back. Go out in the morning and come back in the evening. Always tired, half-frozen, always very hungry.”

“And then?” he urges him to continue his tale.

“Then one day, they go,” he says. “I tell them no, it’s dangerous! But they don’t listen.”

“Where do they go?” Draco’s voice is pressing.

“Up,” he replies, nodding towards where Mount Everest should be, “up, up, up. They say _himamānav_ lives high on mountain. They’re right. Everybody knows. _Himamānav_ lives up. So they go. Take everything with them and go up.” He stops and sighs. “Then three days later, wizards from Australia find a wand and bring it back here. And I know. I know.”

“You know what?”

“I know _himamānav_ eat them,” he says dramatically, “and we send more wizards and they come back with all things. All wands. And they say blood! Blood everywhere! Even on things!”

Draco swallows. He’s glad Lovegood isn’t commenting, maybe finding a silver lining where there can’t be one. Ginny is crying silently behind her palms. Draco stretches an arm and wraps it around her shoulders, pulling her to his chest.

“Thank you,” he murmurs to the man. “Where did they find their things?”

“Up,” replies the man. “Near Lhotse Wall. Very up. Little children… no, no.” He shakes his head. “Dangerous.”

“Thank you,” mutters Draco, tightening his arm around Ginny. “Thank you.”

The man nods, then smiles. “Everything good?” he asks. “Food? Rooms? Things?”

Draco squeezes Ginny’s shoulder and glares at the man. “Yes, everything good,” he says coldly. “Thank you.”

The man nods and finally walks away, back into the kitchen where Draco can hear him shout something at the cook. When the door closes, though, everything is quiet, and Draco finally notices that they are the only ones there. Probably the only guests in the guesthouse at all. He’s glad for that.

After lunch, they go upstairs and Draco tries to keep Ginny away from Lily’s things for a bit longer. He lies down on her bed and she joins him, but she doesn’t sleep, and neither does he. They stare at the wooden ceiling; outside the sun is shining, but it looks so cold, Draco is happy that they’re going to stay inside for the whole afternoon.

After probably half an hour, Ginny is too restless to lie still any longer and they finally decide that it’s time. She divides the clothes from the camping equipment, from their notes. Then folds the clothes one of top of the other, then divides Lily’s clothes from Scorpius’. Then she puts them together again, because they’re taking up most of the space, then—

“Stop it,” says Draco, grabbing her hands. “They’re just clothes. We need to focus on the notes, remember?”

She nods, but all her determination from the first days seems to have been wiped away by something. Draco’s cold remarks about their children’s deaths, perhaps, or maybe her tiredness, or the cold weather.

She slides from the bed to the floor and starts rummaging through the many pieces of parchment that she’s piled there. “Most of them are illegible,” she murmurs, voice broken. “I don’t understand anything… anything, Draco…”

He picks one up. “Not all of them,” he says soothingly. “Look at this one, some words are readable.” He clears his throat and reads, “ _Lobuche smells and it’s windy and cold… Lorcan ate something that tasted funny… the beets we were given weren’t…_ Here it’s all blurry… wait… _Scorpius’ potion was miraculous, I feel so much better, but I still can’t believe…_ ”

“What?” asks Ginny, getting closer to him to look at the parchment as well. “She can’t believe what?”

“It’s unreadable again,” he replies, narrowing his eyes to try to put the words into focus. “ _…he… he was… I wasn’t… so weird…_ ” He sighs. “No, it’s unreadable.”

She lets out a frustrated sound, but now that he has showed her that she can read bits of her notes, she seems to have found a bit of comfort in that, and starts to browse through them with renewed fervour. “ _It snowed today,_ ” she reads. “ _It was a late snow, the Sherpas say that it’s unusual in May… Luna… good luck… we…_ Oh, damn it!” Her face darkens before she skims through the page and finally reaches the end. She smiles softly when she does, and leans closer to Draco. “This is what I told you about,” she says, pointing to a smiley face in a corner. “See? She puts them everywhere.”

Draco smiles, too. “She’s artistic,” he says.

“Oh, yes, she is,” says Ginny warmly. “Very artistic.”

She puts it down and picks up another, and then another and another. Reading bits after bits. Sometimes a date and a place are visible; sometimes they can put them in some kind of order. Sometimes they can read entire paragraphs, but most of the times, she is just talking about tracks, and snow, and how frustrating it is not to find anything. Whenever she mentions Scorpius, Draco’s attention perks up and he looks at the notes over Ginny’s shoulder.

Scorpius has nursed her back to health at some point. Scorpius has played with Lorcan and Lysander for the whole afternoon when they were forced to stay in Gorakshep. Scorpius’ favourite food is the curried yak.

Draco’s heart beats a bit faster every time he gets to know something about his son, but Lily didn’t write anything that they might have used to locate them now. Or if she did, she did so in the paragraphs that have gone wet and bled away.

The light from the window dims out, and Draco can see Ginny’s movements become more sluggish as the pile of unread parchment thins. She looks knackered and discouraged.

Draco feels the same.

He slides closer to her and places a hand on her neck, rubbing her tense muscles as her head falls forward.

“I’m fine,” she murmurs, even though he hasn’t open his mouth.

“I’m tired,” he admits. “Let’s go and have dinner. Maybe we should continue tomorrow. We can use a Revealing Charm, try and see if anything happens.”

She wriggles free from his hand and picks up another piece of parchment. “You go and have dinner,” she says heatedly. “I’ll keep going here.”

He tries to take the parchment from her hand, but she jerks away from him. “Ginny, you’re tired—”

“No, I’m perfectly fine!” she snaps. “Go and have dinner. I don’t need your help here.”

He looks at her back as she keeps looking away from him. He doesn’t want to fight with her, though; he can only imagine that things will get worse if they do start to fight in that confined environment.

Instead, he stands up, shakes his legs and stretches his arms over his head, and walks out of the room without glancing back at her. He doesn’t want to have dinner alone with Lovegood, but he’s curious to see what the old man has found in his room, so he goes to him.

He stops on the door, though, because the room is completely covered in the Scamanders’ belongings. They’re everywhere and Lovegood looks like he’s trapped amongst clothes and backpacks and folded tents.

“Found anything?” Draco asks from the door.

Lovegood starts and looks up from a stack of pictures, then a cheerful smile spreads his lips. “Yes, yes,” he says happily, “so many things, Draco! So many things!” He raises the pictures. “There’s everything—almost everything really—my Luna will be so happy! They managed to bring back all their things.” 

Draco nods disinterested. “Shall we go down to eat something? I’m hungry.”

Lovegood doesn’t listen to him. “Look! There’s even that picture of Scorpius and Lily that my Luna said she would send. She must have developed it here, don’t you think? Maybe we can develop the other pictures, too. I’m sure they’re beautiful, with the snow and the mountains—”

“A picture of Scorpius?” If Lovegood doesn’t listen to him, Draco doesn’t want to listen to the old fool either, but he can’t possibly ignore this piece of information. “Let me see.” He tries to move the clothes away with his foot, but more than once he steps on something that wobbles or creaks. Finally, he grabs the picture from Lovegood’s hand and looks at it.

Scorpius is dressed in some kind of colourful traditional Nepalese clothes, Lily, too. They’re standing one next to the other, holding hands, in front of a golden-roofed temple. Lily seems to be talking to someone off camera, she laughs and gestures for them to come stand with the two of them. Scorpius stares in the same direction, than he’s the first one to open his arms as a blond child throws himself at them. Another child who looks exactly like the first one follows suit and Lily picks him up and finally they all pose for the picture. They look so happy and carefree, Draco’s heart clenches at the scene.

“They’re very photogenic,” comments Lovegood. “Both of them.”

Draco nods, but he is speechless.

“So, dinner you said, Draco? I am really quite peckish,” he goes on. “Let’s go. What about Ginny dear?”

Draco tears his eyes away from the picture with great difficulty. “She’s not hungry.”

Lovegood shakes his head. “That girl…” he sighs, but then he finally stands up and the two of them head downstairs for dinner.

When Draco goes back up to Ginny’s room, a plate of fried bread and some cheese in his hands, she’s sleeping in probably the most uncomfortable position Draco has ever seen someone sleep. Still kneeling, her face plastered to a piece of parchment, ink sticking to her forehead, her back all twisted.

He places the plate on the floor, draws out his wand and uses the Levitation Charm to lay her on the bed. He’s gentle, and she only stirs once to hug the pillow to her chest before she stills completely.

He looks at the pieces of parchment again, torn between lying down with her and keeping on going to see if there’s anything that can be extrapolated from those notes. He gives up both options, though, and instead grabs the pile of clothes that Ginny has folded so many times. He sets Lily’s apart and looks at Scorpius’.

Some of those he recognises. There’s a wizard cape, a present from Astoria’s mother, gloves that he remembers having seen at the Manor, and a hat that he thinks Astoria has given to Scorpius for his last birthday. Then there are many effects that Scorpius must have bought specifically for the trip. Trekking clothes, jumpers, t-shirts. All things his son would never wear at the Manor. He takes the cape in his hands. It’s coarse and heavy, and it smells like Scorpius.

Draco glances at Ginny to make sure she’s sleeping before he hugs the cape to his chest and dips his face into it. He takes a deep breath and lets the familiar smell comfort his aching heart.

“Scorpius,” he murmurs dejectedly. “Where are you?”

Like an answer, something heavy slides from the cape and onto the floor with a loud thud. Draco moves the cape away and looks down to a black, leather-bound book. He picks it up and, without thinking twice, opens it.

> _Scorpius’ journal._
> 
> _And Lily’s journal, too!_
> 
> _No! Lily, you’ve got your own journal, write on yours!_
> 
> _Aww, but I’m your girlfriend, don’t I automatically get 15% of anything you own?_
> 
> _Not sure it works like that…_
> 
> _Alright, can I at least doodle some smiley faces here and there?_
> 
> _If you insist…_
> 
> _I do. I love you…_
> 
> _Same._
> 
> _=)_

The exchange is silly and carefree, and Draco feels a pain in his chest that stings harder than ever before. He stands from the floor where he’s kneeling and makes his way to the bed.

He lies down next to Ginny, covers them both with the cape and props himself up on the pillows. She turns towards him, and circles his chest with one arm. “Cold,” she complains in her slumber.

“I know,” he whispers, wrapping an arm around her. He rubs his hand on her shoulder and then opens the journal again.

> _Day one._
> 
> _I am knackered. I woke up at three this morning. Mother and Father didn’t wake up to say goodbye, not that I expected them to, but it annoys me a little. Lily said she didn’t wake up her parents either, and I suspect she did it for sympathy. She said she left them a note, and I’m sure Mrs Potter is crestfallen that she didn’t get to say goodbye to her. But I don’t want to give her grief so I won’t point it out to Lily. Anyway, we’re stopping here in Teheran for the night. We had some Iranian food, which was delicious, and our bedroom is something out of ‘One Thousand and One Nights’. We’re definitely going to have sweet dreams tonight._

Draco swallows. He was awake at three, he didn’t sleep for the whole night that night, but he was too stubborn to go and say goodbye to Scorpius. He turns the page, hungry for more. 

> _Day two._
> 
> _Kathmandu is interesting, very, very different from any other place I’ve ever seen. We’re stopping here for a couple of days. Luna and Rolf need to buy some things for the trip, and I think Lily and I will get to baby-sit. Lorcan and Lysander are cool, a bit rambunctious, perhaps, but no more than you would expect two eight-year-olds to be. Lysander really likes Lily, too, and I don’t think he likes me that much, Lily says I’m ridiculous. We went to a market today, it was loud and smelly, but I got a bezoar for half the price you’d find it in England, and bezoars are always useful. You never know when you might get poisoned, right?_

Even though there are no useful information so far about their location, Draco is entranced. He turns page after page almost without blinking. He reads about the trek, about Scorpius’ fears, his worries, and he stops and re-reads the most important bits. Like on day eight:

> _Lily was sick again this morning. She woke up and threw up for a good fifteen minutes. Then she was fine, but it’s the third day in a row, so I decided that a good check-up would only do her good. Turns out she forgot to tell me that she’s late and that she’s been having stomach cramps – that’s why she hasn’t eaten much lately. She insists it’s the altitude and all the movement she’s doing. She says that last year in the Andes and in January on Mount Kilimanjaro she felt the same. She says that it’s the altitude that doesn’t agree with her. I don’t know what to think, but I suggested we did a pregnancy spell. She said she’s on the potion, but I told her that potions aren’t 100% safe._

And then he holds his breath until day ten:

> _I managed to convince Lily to do the spell. Alright, Magizoologist 1 – Healer 0, she’s not pregnant. It’s most definitely the altitude. I made her a Gingko Potion, and put her to bed. She should feel better by the morrow._

On day eleven, Draco smiles:

> _Lily is feeling much, much better. She managed to eat all three meals today and keep them down. She asked me why I didn’t give her the potion before. I didn’t tell her that it was because it’s contraindicated during pregnancy. She’d be mad at me if I did. Lysander came to me to thank me for making Lily feel better, I told him no problem, and then his face darkened and he told me that I had to keep my distance from her, though, because she is his girlfriend, not mine. I told that to Lily and she just laughed. I really think it’s no laughing matter, even though he’s only eight…_

Then his entries become less carefree, and Draco frowns so much, his temples start to hurt.

> _It’s really quite cold and windy here in Lobuche. Lily and the Scamanders are coping so well, though, that I’m ashamed to complain. My feet hurt and the altitude is getting to me, too. Lily suggested I drink some Gingko Potion, but she gets sick again as soon as she skips a day and we’re almost out of it. Anyway, it’s mostly the fact that I worry rather than the altitude itself. Even the children are fitter than me, and everybody else if well ahead of me when we trek. Rolf told me not to worry, everybody has their own pace, and the most important thing is that I’m here. He has never seen Lily that happy during a trip. I’m glad to hear that._

_…_

> _We stopped to have lunch near a Stupa today, and I couldn’t help thinking about Father. I don’t even know why, but he came to mind as Luna told me about the eyes of the Buddha and that they are painted on all four directions because he sees everything. I found myself wishing that Father had four sets of eyes too, and that he, too, could see everything. Instead, he’s so self-absorbed that I got away with going out with Harry Potter’s daughter for more than a year. But after all, if he was to know, he would most definitely try to break us up. He wouldn’t even try to get to know Lily and how wonderful she is._

_…_

> _We’re stuck in Gorakshep for at least another day. Lysander and Lorcan are out of control. They stole Lily’s wand and turned their beds into giant spiders. That’s some quite impressive Transfiguration skills, but that’s not the point. Luna and Rolf are way too permissive. I told Lily that when we’ll have kids they won’t be allowed to get away with Transfiguring things into giant spiders. She giggled though, so I think I’ll have to do all the disciplining. I just have to pay attention not to turn into Father at some point._

_…_

> _The first trip to Everest Base Camp was interesting. We didn’t have to camp in the cold, so we were all quite relaxed. Naturally, there are too many Muggles and wizards to be able to spot the Yeti. I think Luna and Rolf want to move up the mountain soon. Not looking forward to having to leave the guesthouse, to be honest._

_…_

> _Everything is white out here. It’s cold beyond what I thought imaginable and there even is a place with memorial stones to people who died here. We’re camping on the mountain tonight. I feel rather anxious about it. Lily suggested we share a sleeping bag, I think we will do that for sure._

_…_

> _I’m so cold, and suddenly I wished I went to say goodbye to Mother and Father before I left. I have a very bad feeling about today. If anything happens to any of us – God! I just hope that person is not Lily._

_…_

> _I heard steps around our tent. Lily heard them, too. She wanted to go out and investigate, but I didn’t let her. She shot a spell, though, and we heard someone fleeing. We’re camped in the middle of nowhere. We didn’t sleep for the rest of the night._

_…_

> _Steps again. Another sleepless night._

_…_

> _I think he’s coming. I don’t know who he is, but he’s coming for us._

_…_

> _He’s here. If anybody—_

When Draco reaches the end of the last page, interrupted on that word, his heart is beating painfully against his ribcage and he feels like he can’t breathe. He can feel his son’s fear linger in the air, and the feeling is taking away his breath. Oh, God! How much he wishes he had said goodbye to him now! How much he wishes he had paid more attention to him! How much—

“You’re crying.” Ginny’s fingers stretch until she’s brushing them against his cheek.

“I’m not,” he mumbles, brushing away the tears himself. “My eyes hurt.”

“What are you reading?” she asks, rubbing her eyes to wake herself up.

“Nothing,” he replies curtly, closing the diary. He half wants to keep his son’s diary private, and half wants to protect her from those last few pages.

She pushes herself into a sitting position and looks at him with a confused expression that soon changes into a determined one. “What are you reading?” she asks again, stretching her hands to take the diary from his own. “Let me see.”

“It’s private, Potter,” he snaps, making her start at his tone.

She looks at him and then down at the diary in his hands, then back at him, eyes wide and mouth equally wide. “Scorpius’ diary,” she breathes. “That’s Scorpius’ diary.”

He doesn’t know how she knows, but he looks away. “It’s private.”

“Oh, God,” she whispers. “Does he write… does he write about…” She brings her hands to her mouth and inhales sharply, big, fat tears falling from her eyes. “Is Lily dead?” she sobs out each word with great difficult.

Bloody hell, he didn’t do such a good job at protecting her. He hunches his shoulders a little and opens the diary for her to see. “No,” he replies quietly. “Nobody is dead.”

She snatches the diary from his hands and goes to the last pages, he can hear her gasp and let out soft desperate sounds. He can’t do much but hold her in his arms until she’s finished reading and then she’s crying and gasping and even cursing Loony Lovegood’s name, at some point.

Draco tries to quiet her, but she falls asleep again only when she’s all cried out, and only because she’s exhausted beyond words.

Draco is the first one to wake up, despite the fact that he has slept probably a grand total of two hours. He feels tired and his eyes hurt; he can’t feel his arm because it’s once again trapped under Ginny and his feet are cold because the cape rode up on his legs.

Ginny doesn’t move, she looks pale and her breathing is so soft that for a moment he has to hold his own breath to hear her. Can she die of a broken heart? The thought scares him and he tries to rouse her.

“Ginny,” he calls her, “Ginny, wake up.”

She doesn’t even stir, not even when he slides his arm from underneath her body; when he tries to pat her face, she’s boiling.

“Damn it,” he mutters. “Ginny! Ginny, wake up. Wake up.” He shakes her shoulders none-too-gently.

Her eyelids flutter, but she doesn’t reply, she just curls on herself and shakes.

“Damn it. Damn it!” he snaps; playing Healer is not exactly something he had planned to do in that forsaken place. He pushes the cape away from him and stands up. Scorpius is a Healer; he must have something, anything, to make her feel better. A basic Pepper Up Potion would certainly do the trick. He starts to rummage through the backpacks, looking for something.

“Good morning, Draco and Ginny dear,” exclaims Lovegood as he opens the door without knocking and waltzes in with a grin over his wrinkly face. “Did you sleep well? Ginny dear, Mr Acharya said that we got post. A poor, scrawny, frozen owl, but it should be good to go this afternoon if you want to write to Harry…” He fans an envelope in his hand. “He wrote to us already. Ginny dear…”

“She’s sick,” snaps Draco, glaring at him from the floor where he’s crouching. “Can’t you see?”

Lovegood looks back at Ginny and, eyes wide, makes his way towards her. “Oh,” he says, as he sits next to her and places a hand over her forehead. “The fever, I see.” He turns to look at Draco, another bright smile over his lips. “Well, I’ve got just what she needs to be in perfect shape for our trek today!”

“Our what?” growls Draco. “We haven’t decided anything, and she can’t go anywhere like that.”

“Oh, but we have to go up the mountain,” says Lovegood, “and I’ve got just the right potion for her.” He stands and makes his way out of the door again, seconds later he’s back with an ampoule in his hand, and he goes back to her.

“What is it?” asks Draco, standing to go and examine the potion. “Don’t give her something that you’re not sure that it’s going to be good for her, Lovegood. If you make things worse with her, I’m going to hold you accountable for it.”

Lovegood waves a hand in front of his face, then slips his arm underneath her and raises her from the mattress. She’s limp and sweaty, pale and flushed in different places. Her hair is plastered to her forehead and she looks really quite sick. Draco hopes it’s not something contagious.

“There, there,” Lovegood says as he pushes the long neck of the ampoule past her lips and pours the potion directly in her mouth. “Down in one gulp,” he whispers.

Ginny’s throat moves gently as she swallows, then she coughs and her eyelids flutter once again.

“There, there,” repeats Lovegood as he lets her le down again. “She’ll be good as new in half an hour.” He stands and grins at Draco. “Shall we go and have breakfast?”

“And we’re going to leave her here?” asks Draco scandalised. “Alone?”

“Oh, yes, she’s not going to go anywhere, is she?”

After all, Draco supposes that no, she’s not going to go anywhere at all. He just tucks her hair behind her ear and rubs a thumb over her cheek before following Lovegood downstairs.

They explain to Mr Acharya what’s going on with her, and he nods gravely before serving their breakfasts as cheerfully as ever.

“Oh, and we’ll need some food, Mr Acharya,” says Lovegood chirpily. “Something warm and lots of water. We’re going up the mountain today; we’ll probably be back with them in a couple of days, don’t you think, Draco?”

Draco looks at him, eyes wide and mouth equally wide; hopefully the old fool understands that Draco doesn’t think that at all. “What are you even talking about?” he hisses.

Lovegood looks back at him as if he thinks Draco is an idiot. “Well, we certainly can’t stay here,” he replies calmly. “We need to follow the directions up to the Yeti’s dwelling.”

“Directions?” snaps Draco. “What directions? There are no signs that lead to the lair of that beast. We don’t even know if we’re close to it. We don’t even know where the he—”

“But we know everything,” says Lovegood calmly. “My Luna made a very thorough account of the way we need to follow.” He draws out a notebook from underneath his colourful jumper, slightly bigger than Scorpius’ diary. “And Lorcan and Lysander made some wonderful drawings, too, you know. I do believe that they have a future as painters…”

Draco’s eyes widen again. “An account?” he demands, surprised. “Was it in their backpacks? Why didn’t you tell us?” He stretches a hand and snatches the diary from Lovegood’s grasp.

“You were busy with Lily and Scorpius’ things,” he replies simply, sipping some tea. “Did you find anything?”

But Draco isn’t listening to him. He has already opened the diary and looked for directions, information, pictures… anything that will help them find their way to them. He skims through some entries, then stops and goes back to them. He furrows his brow and reads them a third time before finally looking up at Lovegood.

“Is this a joke?” he asks darkly. “Are you having a laugh, you old fool?”

Lovegood looks at him, surprised. “I beg your pardon?”

He turns the diary towards him. “It’s a collection of idiotic poems and limericks!” he snarls. “There are no directions here, what on earth are you fabling about?”

Lovegood grabs the diary back, and sends a confused glance at Draco. “But this is the way my Luna writes all the time,” he says surprised. “She’s very artistic, too, isn’t she?”

“She’s crazy just like you,” snaps Draco. “She’s not saying anything that we can use.” He grabs the diary back, opens a random page and starts reading, “Here: _The flower complains, her petals pales, but handsome and brave, the arthropod saves, the beauty returns and all—_ God! This is idiotic. It doesn’t mean anything!”

Lovegood presses his lips together. “I beg to differ,” he says. “It means that our poor Lily was sick, but Scorpius Healed her with a potion. It is definitely quite easy to understand.”

Draco looks at him sharply. “How do you know?” he barks.

“My Luna couldn’t be clearer,” he replies lightly.

“This is poppycock.”

“I still beg to differ,” reiterates Lovegood. “My Luna’s notes are crystal clear.”

Draco darkens and lowers his eyes to the diary once more. Pages and pages of poems, most of them rhyme, too, Lovegood is even crazier than he reckons if he thinks that Draco believes him. He’s just been lucky with that poem, Lily is the name of a flower, Loony Lovegood couldn’t be talking about anybody but her, and that word – _arthropod_ – it was surely something about Scorpius. Something that Magizoologists must know. This cannot be—

“Ah, as I was saying, Draco,” says Lovegood out of the blue, “we got post.” He slides him the letter he was waving a few minutes before and Draco picks it up. The envelope is open; Lovegood must have already read it.

He draws it out, not stopping to think if it’s private at all. There’s nothing private there.

> _Dear Ginny,_
> 
> _I hope this letter reaches you in Gorakshep, and I hope you’ll send back news as soon as possible. You’ve been away for a week and we’re all worried beyond words._
> 
> _We have daily communications with the Ministry of Magic of Nepal, but there hasn’t been a piece of news since you left. I’ve Floo Called the Minister himself, but he’s not very talkative. I do know he believes they’re dead, Ginny. Please, my love, prove him wrong. I trust you. Our Lily cannot be dead. I refuse to believe it._
> 
> _I went to see Malfoy’s wife, as you suggested before leaving. She’s not faring well. Ron proposed we called a Healer, because she did look quite worn out, but she was strenuously opposed to the idea. I’ve sent Teddy to check on her daily, he uses the excuse that they’re almost family._
> 
> _We all await your news. Write soon, my darling. Al and James send their love and so does everybody._
> 
> _Say hello to Xenophilius and Malfoy._
> 
> _I love you,_
> 
> _Harry_

Draco closes the letter again. Astoria is not faring well. That’s no news at all, but his heart clenches anyway. He wishes he was back at home, just for a few minutes, to hold her and comfort her, even when nothing he could tell her would comfort her at all.

She would probably cry as he told her about Scorpius’ last written words, and she would scoff and laugh if he mentioned Lovegood’s theory that Loony Lovegood’s diary actually made sense at all.

“Ah, Ginny dear,” exclaims Lovegood suddenly. “Are you feeling better, my sweet darling?”

Draco’s head jerks up and he looks at Ginny. She’s standing on the door, Scorpius’ cape wrapped like a shawl around her shoulders, her pale face looks worn out and tired. She looks at them with half-opened eyes and shifts on her socked feet unsurely, like a shy child.

Draco feels the urge to comfort her, especially since he can’t comfort his wife. He stands and goes to her.

“You okay?” he asks softly, cupping her cheeks.

She looks at him and nods softly. “Yeah,” she replies. “I’m hungry.”

“Hungry is good,” he says with a small smile. He can’t resist and lowers his head to kiss her forehead, then wraps an arm around her shoulders and guides her to the table, offering her some of his breakfast as they wait for hers to be served.

She eats everything with small bites, but she’s hungry and Draco is glad she’s finally eating. He doesn’t want to be the one to write to her family to let them know that she should be collected by one of them because unable to continue trekking.

“Potter wrote,” says Draco, pushing the letter towards her. “And Lovegood says we can use the owl this afternoon, if you have anything to send to him.”

She opens the letter hastily. “I do,” she replies absentmindedly as she reads through the letter. Her jaw sets, she takes a deep breath, and bites down on her bottom lip. Then she raises her head and looks at Draco. “I’m sorry for your wife,” she says.

Draco shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it,” he replies. “She’s well looked after by the house elves and her own parents.”

Ginny nods softly, then she lowers her head. “I don’t know what to do,” she admits. “I don’t know where to look for them. I don’t know what I expected to find here, but there’s nothing we can—”

“Ginny dear, what are you talking about?” says Lovegood cheerfully. “We do know where to look for them, of course.”

Draco groans, while Ginny looks at Lovegood, the weak sparkle of hope lighting her tired eyes.

“What?” she asks, her voice a surprised whisper.

“He’s crazy,” mutters Draco. “He’s gone, completely and utterly gone.”

Ginny doesn’t listen to him. “What are you talking about, Xenophilius?”

“My Luna wrote down everything,” he says proudly, pushing the diary towards Ginny. “Every single thing that happened to them and where they went and what they found and who and how and when.” He taps his fingers on the leather. “All in here, Ginny dear.”

Ginny’s eyes are downright sparkling now, she grins from ear to ear. “Really?” She opens the diary and starts browsing it, going straight to the end to find some of the most recent news.

Draco can’t stand to see her like that, can’t stand to think that soon her hope will die again when she understands that Lovegood has gone insane. “He doesn’t have anything; her daughter didn’t write anything. Just stupid poems and senseless rhymes. Honestly, Ginny, don’t… don’t even bother…”

She presses her lips together as she reads some of the poems in her mind, then her shoulders hunch slowly under the cape. “Xenophilius,” she sighs in despair, “why do you say… I can’t make any sense of this…”

Draco slides his hand under the table and places it on her knee, squeezing gently to let her know that he supports her complain.

“Ginny dear,” says Lovegood gently, “I well hope that you can’t make any sense of it.”

She looks at him, eyes wide. “What?”

“Nobody should make sense of this,” he goes on very seriously.

“What the hell are you talking about, you old fool?” grunts Draco.

Lovegood looks from her to him. “My Luna knows that some pieces of information should not be left for everyone to read,” he says, nodding. “Nobody should make sense of this.”

Ginny furrows her brow. “Except for you?”

He nods. “I was the one who taught her,” he says proudly.

“Taught her what?” says Draco impatiently.

“How to write!” replies Lovegood.

“Oh, a very good job you did, you old fool,” snorts Draco.

“It’s a code!” says Ginny, her eyes sparkling again. “Isn’t it? She’s using a code!”

Lovegood looks at the diary. “A code? Yes, Ginny dear, I suppose you might call it that,” he smiles. “My Luna and I prefer to say that we have our own secret language. But I bet she taught that to Lorcan and Lysander, too, now…”

“And you can understand it, Xenophilius? Please, tell me you can,” begs Ginny, her leg is quivering under Draco’s hand.

“Of course, I can,” he replies. “Clear as day, it is.”

“So you know where they are?”

“I know where they last were,” he points out. “And where the Yeti is.”

Ginny stands up quickly, pushing the chair back and shrugging off Draco’s hand. “Let’s go, then! What are we waiting for?” she almost screams. “Come on!”

Draco looks up at her, annoyed and surprised. “What? You’re joking, aren’t you?” he says. “He’s crazy, that’s all there is. You can’t seriously believe that he’ll bring us to where they are.”

“Of course he will,” she replies hastily. “Won’t you, Xenophilius?”

“By tomorrow afternoon,” he says, looking convinced.

“You’re crazy,” snaps Draco to him. “And you are, too,” he adds to Ginny. “You were sick until a moment ago and now you want to climb the highest and deadliest mountain on earth and follow the directions that Loony Lovegood left in limericks to her deranged father.” He shakes his head. “Your fever must still be high, and if you think that I’ll follow you up there, then you should have your head checked.”

She stares at him for a long moment, her face completely blank. Then she simply nods. “Okay,” she says before looking back at Xenophilius. “Shall we leave in an hour? I’ll go and pack. How much food do we need? I’ll just go and give my letter to Harry to Mr Acharya, and then we should go. I’ll pack some of Lily and Scorpius’ things as well, in case they’re cold. And water, we need water. Oh, God, I’ll go and pack!” She turns away and hurries towards the door and then Draco can hear her steps up the stairs.

“Bloody hell,” he snaps, slapping his cup on the table and standing up. He follows her upstairs, anger boiling at the pit of his stomach. When he walks into her room, she’s already stuffing her backpack with things. “You’re not going!” he shouts, walking to her and tearing her backpack from her hands. “You’re crazy if you think that I’ll let you go kill yourself with Lovegood.”

She looks at him, befuddled and outraged. Then throws herself at him to try to take the backpack back, but Draco raises it out of her reach. “Give it back!” she cries, grabbing his arm to try to bring it down. “You can’t forbid me to go!”

“I will forbid you to go,” he snaps, “even if it’s the last thing I do.” He grabs her wrist and squeezes hard, until it must surely hurt, she doesn’t even wince, though, as if she can’t feel the pain at all.

“Let me go!” she cries. “I’m going! I _am_ going! Even if it’s the last thing _I_ do.”

“It will be the last thing you do if you follow that old crazy idiot up the mountain,” he growls. “Don’t you understand? He’s crazy. Crazy! And you’re just as insane if you trust him with your life!”

“You don’t understand anything!” she splutters, digging her nails in his arm. “Anything! Give me my backpack, or I swear to Merlin I’ll hex you for good, Malfoy!”

“No!” he shouts in her face. “I’m not letting you go and kill yourself.”

She lets his arm go and tries to wriggle free of his hand on her wrist, probably to look for her wand and carry on her threat, but he squeezes until he’s surely leaving bruises on her pale, freckled skin. And he doesn’t relent, not even when tears form at the corners of her eyes and her movements become more erratic, as if she’s losing hope.

Then, suddenly, she sniffles. “I’ll take her home,” she sobs, hanging her head, “even if it’s the last thing I do. I’ll take my baby home. Alive or… Alive or…” She can’t finish the sentence, she burst into tears and then throws herself at Draco. Unexpectedly. He opens his eyes wide as she hides her face in his chest and wets his jumper. “Come with us,” she pleads. “Please, Draco, come with us. I don’t want to go without you. Please.”

He finally releases her wrist and she wraps her arms around him, hanging on him for support. She cries so loudly and heartbrokenly that Draco can’t do much but hug her back. He leans his head on top of hers and sighs. “Ginny, it’s madness,” he whispers.

But she just repeats, “Please, come with us.”

“We’re going to die.” _Like them_ , is what he wants to add, but he doesn’t dare.

“If I don’t try everything in my power to get her back,” she sniffles, “I might as well be dead.”

He stares at the wall in front of him, uneven and covered in Nepalese posters depicting those mountains that Draco doesn’t know if he likes or hates now. Oh, God, why is he starting to think that she’s right? He tries to suffocate that idea, but it becomes more and more insistent at the back of his head. If they stay here, they’re never going to find them. Alive or dead. If they stay here, they can wait for forever for a piece of information on their children’s fate. If they stay here… they’re going to stay here forever. Whether following Lovegood up Mount Everest is a wise or bad choice, it doesn’t matter: it’s the only alternative they have.

“Do you trust him?” he asks, desperation seeping through each and every single word. “Do you _really_ trust him? With our lives, Ginny.”

“I really trust you,” she whispers. “Please, Draco, come with us.”

He squeezes her in his arms, then he capitulates, and he is unsurprised to understand that it has taken him remarkably little time. “One day,” he rasps out. “One day, if we don’t find the place where they last camped in one day—”

“We’ll come back here, I promise,” she hurries to finish for him.

He doesn’t believe her, and he suspects that she doesn’t believe herself either. He’s determined to make her keep her promise, though.

She tilts her head back and dries her eyes. “Thank you.”

He cups her cheeks. “One day,” he reminds her before kissing her. He’s desperate and she responds with equal force, her hands grabbing his wrists. “Just one day,” he repeats between kisses. “I swear, Ginny…”

“I know,” she assures him. “Thank you. Thank you, Draco.”

She hugs him again and he nods in reply. Then concern grips his stomach at the thought of braving the mountain.

They’re ready right after lunch, if they can call something they eat at half past ten in the morning lunch. Draco has stuffed some of Scorpius’ clothes in his backpack; Ginny has done the same with Lily’s. They try to wear each and every single article of clothing they own, and Ginny has the brilliant idea of reinforcing the existent Heating Charms on them, so now they’re nice and toasty.

“Are you sure you’re warm enough?” he asks her, overlooking her appearance as they make their way downstairs. “Feet? Ears? Nose?”

She smiles. “Yes, thank you. You?”

“Yes,” he replies curtly, “but I wasn’t the sick one. I really, _really_ don’t want to have to carry you back here if you’re sick again. Or to have to camp out there for days because you can’t move.”

“It was just a fever,” she replies dismissively. “I was just tired; anyway, Xenophilius’ potion healed me completely.”

He nods. “But if you’re sick again—”

“You can say, _I told you so_ ,” she assures him with a smile.

“Cold comfort,” he mutters.

Xenophilius is already in the dining room, talking happily to Mr Acharya, who looks rather worried about their decision of going to look for their children and camp out there for a night.

“Dangerous!” he howls. “You no listen to me! Your children no listen to me either, and now they gone. And you no listen to me, and you gone, too! _Himamānav_ is happy this year! Many crazy wizards and witches for him to eat!”

Lovegood laughs heartily, as if Acharya has just told him a joke, rather than predicting their deaths. “Thank you for your help, Mr Acharya,” he says. “We’ll be back soon. Can you prepare another three rooms for them?”

The man shakes his head and makes a jerky gesture with his hand, then disappears into the kitchen as if he doesn’t want to witness them leaving to go meet their fate.

“Great,” mutters Draco, but neither Ginny nor Lovegood pay him any mind as they walk out of the guesthouse and into the breath-taking coldness.

“Which way, Xenophilius?” asks Ginny anxiously.

He stands there, looking befuddled for a minute, and Draco groans. Then he smiles. “Ah, that way!” he exclaims. “Everest Base Camp,” he reads a yellow sign that points them towards north. “That was their first stop.”

“Tell me you have your map,” Draco whispers to Ginny as they start walking. “I don’t want to end my life at the bottom of a crevice.”

She nods. “I have it,” she replies quietly. “But after Everest Base Camp is not very precise, I’m afraid.”

He shakes his head as they follow Lovegood. “If I die, I’ll come back to haunt you.”

She smiles and looks like she doesn’t believe him, but he will, oh! He will take residence in Grimmauld Place and drive her up the wall by repeating, “I told you so,” until she can’t take it anymore. Yes, he will. He nods, satisfied; now that he’s happy with his plan for his afterlife, he can focus on the trek.

It is strenuous. He doesn’t know if it’s because he has slept so badly that he almost cannot keep his eyes open, or if it’s because it really is a hard climb, but they have to make their way on big boulders and narrow, dusty pathways where dangerous frozen puddles are hidden in the shadow of the rocks. Draco slips more than once, and his gloves slash open when he tries to grab a rock. He recognises that the climb is not too steep, but the air is colder and more rarefied than ever before, and that’s making their walk sluggish and slow.

The route is all the same, too; the landscape monotonous and even though they keep moving, it looks like they’re not moving at all. All three of them are silent most of the time, and even breathing seems a hard task now. Their pants are loud, suffered and let out a great cloud of steamy breath.

They never stop, though, not even when Ginny doubles over with a hand on her chest and complains that her lungs are freezing and hurt her does she want to take a break. Not even when Draco ends on his arse into a small pile of snow.

Three long hours later, they reach the Base Camp, which is dotted with some spare tents and many trekkers walking about as if it’s one renowned holiday destination.

They finally stop for lunch, taking out warm tea and equally warm food from their backpacks. Apparently, Muggles have thermic food containers so nobody pays them any mind when they take out their magically heated food.

“How long before the place where we’ll camp?” asks Draco, fearing the answer, but needing to know.

Lovegood, bent over the open diary, doesn’t look up. “Every Muggle account says up to seven hours,” he replies calmly.

“Seven hours?” gasps Draco horrified. “Are you crazy? That would mean that we’d reach the site when it’s already dark.” He looks at Ginny. “We can’t trek at night. We can’t. It’s complete—”

“We’ll take less than that,” says Lovegood, looking up to wink at him. “Don’t worry, Draco.” He seems calm and secure, but that doesn’t make Draco less anxious. At all.

Ginny finishes her meal, though, and comes to sit next to him, and that makes him feel better. The proximity of a sane person who understands his pain, fears, and desperation, someone to share this experience with, that’s all he wants, that’s all he needs.

They sit together for a while, until they decide that it’s time to go, so they pack their stuff again and follow Lovegood through Base Camp. Many Muggles look at them with wonder, an old man and two middle-aged people going in the direction of the summit, they must all think them either crazy or expert trekkers. God knows they’re definitely not the latter.

The higher they climb, the worse it becomes. But they never stop, they cannot stop. They drink plenty of fluids on the go, passing bottles and thermos full of tea from one to the other. Draco is too tired to even grimace at the fact that he is sharing them with Lovegood.

It doesn’t take them long before they get to a high ice wall. They can hear the snow creaking underneath their feet, crevasses probably opening in the glacier. Draco hopes nothing opens under them.

“Muggles take hours to climb this,” announces Lovegood cheerfully. “We’ll take five minutes.” He turns to look at Ginny. “Ladies first, Ginny dear,” he says gentlemanly.

Draco stares nonplussed as she steps forward and Lovegood takes out his wand. “ _Wingardium Leviosa_ ,” he says, and Ginny is raised from the ground and up towards the summit of the wall. Draco is dazzled for a moment; he feels stupid at having been reminded by Lovegood that they can use magic to ease their trek. He has forgotten they could do that ever since the Minister has refused to give them Portkeys to reach Gorakshep.

“Almost there, Xenophilius,” calls Ginny, her voice breathless from up there.

“Yes, but slowly, Ginny dear,” he replies. “We don’t want you to be sick.”

Draco looks at him; he has to admit that the old fool is not a complete idiot. He would have just propelled her up there in the blink of an eye, or maybe he would have Apparated the three of them to their final destination. But that would mean sickness and probably death in that climate.

Lovegood offers to make Draco go second, but he refuses and instead draws out his wand to help him up. “Age before beauty,” he says to cut off Lovegood’s protestations.

“Slowly,” says Lovegood, a hint of worry in his voice, as if he’s afraid that Draco will want to make him sick on purpose.

“Don’t worry,” he says calmly. “ _Wingardium Leviosa_.” He is slow and calm as he helps him up, and soon Ginny is helping him to stand at the very top of the wall. Then she points her wand at Draco and finally he’s the one who is flying upwards, joining them a few minutes later.

“You okay?” asks Ginny as she hugs him.

“Yeah,” he replies, hugging her back. “You?”

“Yes,” she says.

They don’t have time to say anything else, they’re well ahead of their schedule now, but they don’t want to stop. They are anxious to get to the place where they’ll camp – wherever that might be – before it gets dark. So they continue, following Lovegood’s steps as he makes his way in ankle-height snow.

The only good thing is that they’re not climbing anymore, just keeping on walking in a flat valley covered in snow. Every now and then they hear the dull noise of a crevasse opening somewhere behind them or of an avalanche falling at their right.

“This place is a death-trap,” mutters Draco, afraid to raise his voice to help Mother Nature with her seeming attempts at murdering them.

“The Valley of Silence,” replies Ginny.

“What?”

“It’s the name of this place.” She turns to look at him. “The Valley of Silence.”

He can’t believe that someone would find the time to name even those forsaken places up there, but the name is fitting. They can’t hear anything except for their own hearts and the occasional movements of the snow.

They keep walking for a few more hours, until another wall of ice becomes visible in front of them.

Draco is already taking out his wand when Lovegood talks, “We’ll camp here. Better if we set our tent far away from those tiny creaks there, we don’t want to end up in the depths of the glacier, do we?”

“Are you crazy?” mutters Draco. “We should get to the wall, camp at its foot. At least we’ll be sheltered from the wind and the cold.”

“It’s safer here,” replies Lovegood, already taking off his backpack. “We don’t want to be buried in an avalanche, do we, Draco?”

Draco glares at him, but Lovegood’s tone is not condescending, and he pays Draco very little attention anyway. Soon they are all busying themselves with their tents: Lovegood with his own, and Draco helping Ginny with hers. They eat the rest of the food inside, and then the sun goes down so quickly they go from day to night in a matter of minutes. They’re all glad they’re camped already when night catches them, because they can feel the Heating Charms wavering under the biting cold that filters inside.

“It’s freezing cold,” says Draco softly, as he secures the tent shut.

“I know,” replies Ginny, and when he turns to look at her she’s raising one side of her sleeping bag – which she hasn’t turned into a bed for fear of the excessive weight against the precarious ice – under which she’s buried.

He doesn’t think twice about it, he slips inside and they fumble in the confined, but definitely warm, space until her clothed back is pressed against his front. He circles her waist and pulls her to him, until her arse is fitted against his groin.

She’s warm, too, not boiling like that morning, but warm and nice, and Draco feels instantaneously better next to her. The climb disheartened him, but now he thinks the night will be reasonably pleasant.

“We’re going to find them tomorrow,” whispers Ginny suddenly, badly contained excitement in her voice. “Aren’t we?”

Draco squeezes her. “Ginny…”

“No, no,” she insists, her voice tight. “Lie to me, Draco, tell me that we’ll find them. Please, I need to hear it.”

He pushes his nose in her hair, until his lips are next to her ear. “We’ll find them,” he murmurs. “We’ll find them and they’ll be alive and well, and they’ll wonder why it took us so long to go and get them.” He likes to make up this tale, it gives him peace, so he continues, “And we’ll tell them that we stopped for a while in every village, to buy postcards and send them back home. To sunbathe on the rocks and talk to the Muggles about the weather and the food. We’ll tell them that we’ve been sick with worry for them, and we’ll ground them until they’re fifty.”

Ginny pushes herself into him and half-turns her head. “Together or apart?” she asks with complicity.

“Hmm,” he continues, “together only if they repent. Or maybe apart, but they can have weekly visits to each other. So that we don’t have to be subjected at the constant smooching sounds coming from their room.”

“Clever,” she hums.

“I know, right?”

She nods, and then, slowly and with great effort, she turns in the confines of the sleeping bag, until she’s facing him. “I like this story,” she murmurs. “I hope it turns out to be true.” She kisses him, slowly and gently at first, her lips all covered in bruises and cuts for the cold and probably her own teeth worryingly dunking in them during the day.

His lips aren’t much better anyway, and they almost hurt when he tries to deepen the kisses and cups her cheeks to keep her there.

“So cold,” she whispers between kisses.

He doesn’t know what she’s talking about, though, because it’s hot in the sleeping bag, but he doesn’t stop to ask her. He can feel that she’s not boiling like that morning, and maybe she is talking about her toes and other extremities.

“Come here,” he murmurs, as he wraps his arms around her waist and pull her to him.

They kiss for long, comforting minutes, barely coming up for air at all. And then it all happens in a matter of seconds. His hands are on the buttons of her trousers, hers are already inside his underwear, stirring him to hardness. He touches her, too, this time, making her wet and ready for him.

He hikes her leg over his side and wraps a hand around his cock, guiding himself towards her. She’s warm, wet, tight and, now, even familiar. She’s comforting and she’s perfect and she’s all he needs right now.

She lets out a groan when he pushes himself to the hilt and then she’s the first one to roll her hips towards him, meeting his every thrust as he jerks his pelvis forward.

They don’t last long. He wishes they did, he thinks they would, but they probably need this much more than he thought they would. He feels like a teenager when he comes, a few minutes after they have started, but she comes with him, so it makes everything a bit less embarrassing.

Not that up there in that cold and solitary night there’s anything to be embarrassed about.

He doesn’t remember slipping out of her at any point at all; he just pins her against the floor of the tent, hides his face in the crook of her neck, and then they’re too knackered to be awake a minute longer.


	5. Asamprajnata

 

When Draco wakes up the following morning, it’s not morning at all. It’s only four, and Draco calls that night, but they have to leave that early if they want to make it to the place where Lovegood claims their children disappeared before afternoon, so that they can go back to Gorakshep once they don’t find anything.

Draco isn’t sure that they can go back to Gorakshep in one day, but at the same time he is not sure that his companions will want to go back at all if they don’t find anything. He’s ready to fight, though, because Ginny promised and he doesn’t want to stay there, in the middle of nowhere.

“Ginny,” he calls her, planting a kiss on her forehead, “it’s time.”

She hums. “Four?” she asks sleepily.

“Four.”

She nods quietly, then stirs, then her eyelids flutter. To be honest, though, they’ve surely slept better than the night before. Draco releases her; he buttons up his trousers, and then pushes back the sleeping bag. “It’s cold,” he complains, and he hasn’t even walked out of the tent yet.

“It’s going to get colder,” she reminds him, sitting up and working on fastening her trousers, too. “We better cast a good Heating Charm on each other under.”

He nods and finally opens the door of the tent to go and check on Lovegood. The old fool is already standing up there, his back to Draco as he looks at the wall ahead of them barely visible in the pre-dawn light.

“Did you sleep well, Lovegood?” he asks with a yawn.

“Like a baby,” he says absent-mindedly. He hands Draco a cup of tea and keeps staring in front of him.

Draco sips from the warm beverage, then follows the gaze of the man. “What are you looking at?”

“The avalanche,” he replies simply.

“What?” Draco narrows his eyes, then he finally sees it, too, great blocks of snow falling down the wall, landing with dull thumps on the ice underneath.

“Weird,” comments Lovegood, “an avalanche in the morning. They usually happen in the afternoon when the snow it’s softer from the sun.”

“Great,” mutters Draco. “Is it safe? To continue, I mean. Shall we find another way?”

“There’s only one way,” says Lovegood calmly. “And I suspect it might be safe, but we better keep our wands in our outside pockets.”

Draco agrees. Lovegood has never worried up until now, so seeing him looking that thoughtful is not a comforting thing at all.

“Morning, Xenophilius,” says Ginny as she comes out of the tent and comes to stand next to Draco. She leans against Draco’s side, and sips some of his tea from his cup.

“Morning, Ginny dear,” replies Lovegood. “We better move soon, the sooner we reach Lhotse Wall, the better…”

“That’s where they found their things,” says Ginny, promptly. “Are we going there?”

Draco looks at her. It makes sense that the last place they were is where they found their things. Why hasn’t he thought of that?

“More or less,” he replies cryptically. “Let’s pack and move, now. We still have a few hours before getting there.”

They pack quickly, then Lovegood has a surprisingly brilliant idea and he casts the Bubble-Head Charm on the three of them, giving them access to more oxygen and warmer air that doesn’t hurt their lungs. They can do that now that it’s highly unlikely to find Muggles on their path.

Ginny kisses his cheek in gratitude, and Draco pats his shoulder and mutters a “Thank you” as well.

Then they begin their last day of ascent.

They walk towards Lhotse Wall for no more than a couple of hours, and when they’ve almost reached it, they notice that they’re standing on a rocky patch that divides the glacier into two. Walking on that is much easier than walking in snow, and they can finally rest their tired feet on a hard surface.

They stop, have a quick breakfast with some leftover rice and coffee, and then they continue west, following Lovegood, who looks very focused on what he’s doing.

“Have you checked your map?” Draco asks Ginny in a whisper.

She shakes her head. “I trust him,” she replies. “He brought us here without a map; I know he knows what he’s doing.”

“Oh, God,” he groans. “We’ll die here.”

“They found their things there,” says Lovegood suddenly, turning to look at the plateau they’ve just walked upon.

“Where?” Ginny asks anxiously, and Draco turns to look, too, hoping to see some sort of heavenly sign.

“Somewhere there, in the snow,” replies Lovegood vaguely. “They cleaned up the blood, Mr Acharya said.”

Ginny swallows behind the bubble and it’s so loud that Draco can hear it. “Let’s keep going,” he says, wanting more than anything to put as much distance as he can between their blood – Scorpius’ blood, probably – and himself.

They walk near the wall for hours; it is a scary place and Draco is aware that everything is creaking, above their heads and under their feet.

“Shouldn’t we climb it, Xenophilius?” asks Ginny, her voice slightly tight with concern. “Shouldn’t we go up?” She stops and looks at the top of the wall, and when she does Draco can see how tired she seems.

“We should stop for a bit,” points out Draco, protectively wrapping an arm around her shoulders, he doesn’t want her to faint for exhaustion. Do they have potions? Do they know some good reviving spell? He doesn’t. “She’s tired.”

“No!” she says tightly, wriggling free. “I can continue. We… we should continue.” She moves away from Draco and reaches Lovegood. “Which way, Xenophilius?”

Lovegood doesn’t reply, he is not his usual chatty self anymore and that scares Draco more than the avalanches and the crevasses and the wall looming over them. He seems thoughtful, has he lost his way? Has he misread Loony Lovegood’s notes? Oh, God! Why did Draco trust him? How could he? This man is going to kill all three of them. Only now Draco understands how idiotic he has been to give in to Ginny’s pleas.

They keep walking for hours; Draco is hungry and cold, everything is either white as snow, dark as the rocks or blue as the sky. The only spot of colour in front of him is Ginny’s bright red jacket. He follows it like a dazzled child would follow a will-o’-the-wisp in a cemetery.

He starts to toy with the idea that this will become his tomb. He wonders if the Sherpas will find only their things and blood or their frozen bodies as well. He wonders if Potter will be jealous of the way his wife clings to him in their death. It doesn’t really matter, though. They’ll be dead, nothing will matter anymore.

He thinks about Scorpius, at least he’ll be with him soon enough. _I’m coming, Scorpius_ , he thinks wistfully, _your father is coming._

“Here!” exclaims Lovegood suddenly. He stops so abruptly that Ginny bumps into him and Draco bumps into her. “Here, here, here,” he chants. “Out with your wands! Oh, we’re so close, so close! I can’t wait to see my Luna and my dear Lorcan and Lysander! And Rolf, naturally, don’t tell him that I don’t mention him enough!”

“What’s here?” asks Draco, and he is unsurprised at how tired his voice is. “There’s nothing here, Lovegood.”

“Ginny dear, you go first,” he says, “then you, Draco, then me.” He points his wand at Ginny. “Not all the way,” he continues, “there, three thousand feet up there. Grab the protrusion when you see one and get inside. _Wingardium Leviosa_.”

“Grab what?” she asks worriedly as she is pushed upwards. “Oh, God, Xenophilius, everything is white here and smooth… I cannot see anything…” Her voice becomes smaller and smaller and Draco stares as she levitates higher and higher, until she is just a spot of red against the wall. She looks terrifyingly like a drop of blood and Draco’s guts are gripped with fear **.**

“Here!” she finally screams. “I see it! I see it! Bring me closer!”

“I don’t think she should scream quite like that,” chuckles Lovegood, but he brings her closer nonetheless.

She grips something and then disappears into the wall and for a moment Draco thinks that it’s by magic again. Her head reappears soon, though, and he can see that she’s standing in a passageway or something similar. She points her wand towards them and next thing Draco knows, he’s levitated upwards.

The wall is a vertical, white barrier and he can see why Ginny was fretting when she was asked to look for something. Draco can’t make out anything in the ice in front of him. But he knows where he has to go and, even though the ascent is slow to let him acclimatise on the way, he feels safe.

Ginny’s hands grab him and she pulls him inside when he reaches her. It is most definitely the beginning of a passageway, and it looks like it has been excavated in the snow and rock by some powerful force.

Together they help Lovegood up the wall, too.

“What is this place?” asks Draco, looking back towards the gallery. “It looks like… like some sort of—”

“Burrow,” she whispers.

Draco groans inwardly. “Bloody hell,” he mutters. “He’s going to eat us up for lunch.”

“Wands at the ready,” she says softly.

“Yeah.” He’s going to use all the Unforgivable Curses that exist before he lets the Yeti touch him or Ginny. Or Lovegood. The beast will never get them, not while Draco’s living.

“Ah, marvellous,” exclaims Lovegood, as he is lifted onto the passage. “We found it. Just like my Luna said.”

“Is this the lair of the Yeti?” asks Draco unnecessarily, standing up and brushing snow from his clothes.

“I think house would be more appropriate, Luna and Rolf have decided that they’ll petition to change the classification of the Yeti from beast to being,” says Lovegood as Ginny helps him to his feet. “I think it’s a great idea, don’t you think?”

Draco wrinkles his nose. “If this thing has eaten my son and tries to eat us, too, I’ll be a strenuous opponent to this petition,” he hisses.

Lovegood looks at him for a minute, then nods. “I suppose it makes sense,” he agrees.

Ginny raises her wand. “ _Lumos_ ,” she whispers. The light shows them a big, cave-like tunnel that disappears somewhere inside the mountain. “Shall we?”

Draco raises his wand, too. “ _Lumos_. I think we shall,” he says, walking ahead of her. “Stay close to me. I’ll go first.”

She grabs his arm and squeezes. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” he replies curtly as they start down the tunnel. “Lovegood will have too many reserves if it comes to kill the beast, and I suspect your heart is too tender, as well.”

“If he killed Lily,” she says, her voice harsh, “I’ll make him explode like one of my brothers’ fireworks **.”**

He smiles in front of him and nods. They continue walking with her hand clutched at his arm, in silence now, though. Draco expects for the air to become stuffy at some point, but it doesn’t, until he remembers that he’s still breathing through the bubble.

“How deep is this thing?” he asks impatiently.

“Luna didn’t write it,” replies Lovegood. “I suspect we should almost be there by now.”

He looks at the ceiling, a perfectly smooth and round arch, made of cold ice that makes the passage even colder. Then he stops and narrows his eyes as he stares.

“What?” asks Ginny in a fretful whisper, squeezing his arm.

He stretches his hand and grasp some white fluff that was stuck to the ice. It’s coarse and long and it’s the purest white he’s ever seen. Draco takes a step back and turns to show it to Ginny, but something under his foot rolls away and he almost loses his balance.

“Damn it,” he mutters, turning to look at what he has stepped upon. “Shit,” he gasps as he spots the long bone that looks definitely like a femur. There are more ahead of them, scattered here and there.

“What?” asks Ginny again, her voice high-pitched with fear.

He swallows. “White fur on the ceiling,” he replies, “and human bones on the floor.” There’s no way he can sugar-coat the news, she might as well know straight away.

“Merlin,” she whispers.

“Marvellous,” exclaims Lovegood contentedly. “We’re getting close!”

“Marvellous,” deadpans Draco. They keep walking, looking carefully at where they’re putting their feet, not wanting to step on more skeletons.

He tries to push the thought that one of those bones might belong to Scorpius or to Lily at the back of his head. He doesn’t want to think about that.

“You okay?” he asks Ginny, his voice throaty.

“Yes,” she replies just as hoarsely.

He nods jerkily, but doesn’t turn to look at her, and bare minutes pass before he says again, “You okay?”

This time, she doesn’t reply out loud; she squeezes his arm, though. Ginny is so good at holding back the tears; Astoria would have already melted in a sobbing heap on the dirty floor of that gallery. He is grateful for Ginny’s strength, but he doesn’t know what she’s going to do when they find their half-eaten bodies. What if she goes insane with grief? What if _he_ does? What if they stay there too long and then are eaten as well? Death doesn’t sound that bad, though, now that he’s sure that Scorpius is gone. This could be their tomb, it’s even better than the snow outside.

They keep walking for minutes, or maybe they are hours, or only seconds. Draco doesn’t know, the tunnel is all the same, the only thing that changes are the bones: they become more and more copious as they walk. Luckily, they’re behind the bubble, otherwise the stench would probably make them sick already.

Then, suddenly, the tunnel becomes wider, the ceiling higher and floor widens into a circular room. There’s light coming from the ceiling, as if the ice on top is a glass dome that lets some sunrays filter in. The light is still dim, though, but they can turn off their wands and use them as weapons now.

Draco takes a step forward and then stops. Suddenly, something hits him really hard, and for a moment he’s left gasping behind the bubble. He needs to call Ginny, but he feels like his throat won’t open around her name. Instead, he turns towards her, stretches his hands in her direction, and his arms envelope her slight frame and pull her to him until she’s pressed against his chest and her beautiful face is hidden in the puff of his snow jacket. Like that, she’s momentarily unable to see the horrors around them.

“What?” she asks, her voice on edge. “What, Draco?” She tries to wiggle in his arms, but he won’t let her go. Not yet.

He takes a deep breath, then presses his lips against her forehead through the bubble. “Ginny, they can’t be alive,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry, but they can’t be alive. They must be dead. We’re going to find their bodies… or their skeletons. I’m so sorry. I cannot lie to you again, we… they… They’re dead. I’m sure they are. They must be. I’m sorry, Ginny.”

She stiffens slightly against him, then he feels her tilt her head upwards, and finally her lips brush against his ear. “Shh,” she whispers comfortingly. “Don’t. Please.”

It takes him some long minutes to find the strength to calm down, even longer to let her go, and when he unwinds his arms from around her, he finds that she’s grasping his jacket in the effort of prolonging the moment. He gives in to her silent request and squeezes her for a few more seconds before they’re both ready to let go.

When they do part, she looks up at him and nods softly but resolutely, and he nods back just as slightly. Then, they finally turn to look the cave and stare at its horrors.

There are piles of bones, some still wrapped in ragged clothes, some with some flesh still hanging on them. There’s blood on the floor and on the walls as well, and perfectly squared blocks of ice scattered here and there.

“This is the lair,” whispers Ginny. “This is—Xenophilius! Stay close to us!”

Draco turns in time to see Lovegood perched over one of the blocks of ice, his wand lightened up. “Not them,” he mutters as he looks at the ice.

“What are you doing?” asks Draco.

“It’s not them,” he says out loud, nodding towards the ice block.

“What do you mean?” He walks to him with Ginny and all three of them look at the block.

Ginny is the first one to recoil and step back, a suffocated cry leaving her lips. “Oh, my God!”

There’s a girl in there, a Sherpa girl, eyes wide and round face flushed. She’s frozen in there, her palms outstretched in front of her chest, she looks scared beyond words and a frozen tear looks like a pearl on her cheek.

“Bloody hell,” mutters Draco.

“Oh, my God,” repeats Ginny. “ _Lumos_!”

When Draco turns to look at her, she’s already running towards the next block, and then the next and the next one.

He hurries behind her, looking left and right, too. There are men, women, children, old people, Sherpas and foreigners, fat and thin, beautiful and ugly. Dozens, hundreds of them. Like a pantry filled with delicacies.

It doesn’t take her long, and Draco knows when she has found them because she finally lets out a cry. She stands there, right next to a big block, hands over her mouth, eyes wide and filling rapidly with tears. She’s shaking and sobbing in less time than it takes Draco to reach her.

Draco takes a sharp breath, but the air, somehow, doesn’t reach his lungs. He feels like he’s suffocating as he stares at Scorpius. His handsome face is slightly turned towards that of a beautiful young lady, they both have their eyes scrunched up and Scorpius’ hands are around her, as if he’s trying to protect her from her fate. Their skin is as white as alabaster, and they look like two statues that some artist decided to chisel, because they’re both too beautiful to be real. Lily’s hair fans all around them like fire.  

Ginny turns towards Draco, hiding her face in his chest, and cries and cries and cries, but Draco can barely register the sounds she is making. He has gone deaf, surrounded by a wall of pain and grief as he finally stands in front of his son’s body.

“Ah, here they are,” chirps Lovegood happily, looking down at a couple more blocks. “Ah, looking good, aren’t they?”

Draco glares at him. Could he kill him there and then let everybody believe that it was the Yeti who did it?

“Oh, my God!” wails Ginny against his chest. “They look like… they look like they’re sleeping… My baby…”

“But they are sleeping, Ginny dear,” says Lovegood cheerfully. “They are.”

“No, they aren’t, Xenophilius,” she sobs, wetting Draco’s chest as he gives her a one-armed hug. “They aren’t. They are… they are…”

“Yes, they are sleeping, Ginny dear,” he goes on as he takes off his backpack and his bag.

“Shut up, you old idiotic fool!” snarls Draco. “They’re dead, can’t you see? Dead!”

Ginny wails louder as he says these words oud loud, and the bitter truth hits them again like an avalanche, cold and painful.

“No, no, no,” chants Lovegood. “You just wait and see.”

Draco wriggles free from Ginny and strides towards Lovegood, who is fumbling with his stupid bag again, the bag Draco is now regretting to have saved from the river. “Shut up!” he cries. “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Do you understand me?” He grabs Lovegood from the front of his jacket and shakes him. “I’m going to kill you if you don’t shut up!”

“Draco, no!” sobs Ginny, grabbing his arm. “Please, please…”

Draco grits his teeth, shakes Lovegood a bit more forcefully and growls softly. “Shut up,” he repeats his voice low and dangerous. “Do you understand me?”

“Let him go,” wails Ginny. “Please.”

He lets him go, but keeps on glaring at him, even as Ginny throws herself in his embrace again.

Lovegood looks a bit surprised back at him, but then goes back to his bag as if nothing has happened.

Draco lowers his eyes on the block of ice. Luna Lovegood, her husband and one of her children are all lying together, curved one against the other. Luna is holding her child in her arms and her husband is trying to stretch his arm towards something outside the block, probably their other child, who is certainly trapped in the smaller block at Lovegood’s left.

Such small children. Draco thinks that someone should have taken them away from such irresponsible parents when they were born, but yet again, who is he to give such judgements on parenting?

“ _Incendio_ ,” he hears Lovegood say, and when he looks at him, he sees that he’s melting the bigger ice block.

“What are you doing?” snaps Draco. “We haven’t decided what to do, yet!”

Lovegood furrows his brow. “I’m freeing them,” he replies simply.

“Oh, bloody hell! You’re crazy!” shouts Draco again. “Crazy! Don’t melt the ice! They’re going to rot before we can bring them home!”

Lovegood doesn’t listen to him, and now Ginny is looking at him with eyes wide and mouth just as wide. Unable to utter a word, too horrified probably. They need to forbid him to get close to their children’s block. If he wants to experiment on his family’s bodies, he can suit himself, but he will never get to Lily and Scorpius.

“There,” says Lovegood as the three bodies are all free from the ice. “Now, just a few drops of _sayapatri_ ,” he mutters under his breath, “and _suryamukhi_ , all mixed with the sacred potion the blessed monks gave us in Tengboche and sunflower seeds I brought from home.” He looks at Draco and Ginny, who are now mesmerised by his actions. “Isn’t that funny? Sunflower seeds!” He laughs, but they don’t understand why. They just stare as he mixes all the ingredients together and then brings the ampoule to Luna’s lips. He feeds her a couple of drops before moving to the child. “Here you go, Lorcan, always close to your mummy, when will you grow up a little?” Then he moves to Scamander, but by the time he brings the ampoule to his son-in-law’s lips, Luna is already stirring and so is Lorcan.

Ginny makes a loud and choked sound of surprise, but Draco is too shocked to even move.

“Hello, Daddy,” says Loony Lovegood, her voice dreamy as always as she sits up. “It’s really nice to see you.”

“Hello, Luna my lovely,” replies Lovegood, hugging her quickly. “It’s nice to see you, too. Thank you for leaving such thorough notes.”

Her child is stirring, too, and Scamander is opening his eyes when Draco turns on his heels and goes back to his son’s block. His hands are shaking and he needs to say the spell a few times before fire actually shoots from his wand. Ginny joins him straight away, and they work together to melt the ice as quickly as possible.

“Here, here,” cries Draco as Scorpius and Lily’s heads surface from the ice. “Here, Xenophilius, please, please, hurry!” Draco is begging. He is begging Lovegood, and that’s something he never thought it would happen. But Lovegood has the power to bring his son back to life and he would cry in front of him and kiss his feet if that would help.

“Coming,” says Lovegood gingerly. “Let me just finish here with Lysander, ah, always trying to escape your mummy, aren’t you?”

“Please, Xenophilius,” sobs Ginny. “Please, here.”

He finally reaches them, he smiles affably, like a Healer with a miraculous cure and first pours some of his potion into Lily’s mouth and finally into Scorpius’. Both Draco and Ginny hold their breaths when he walks back to where his family is standing, their eyes trained on their own children.

Lily is the first one to flutter her eyelash, and Ginny lets out a wild cry and is on her without thinking twice. “Lily! Lily!” she cries as she kisses and hugs her, rubbing her hands all over her arms to try to warm her up.

Draco has to hold his breath a little bit longer, but finally Scorpius is awakening, too: his long, blond eyelashes flutter and his grey eyes open on Draco. “Father?” he says, his voice throaty.

“Scorpius!” sobs Draco as he hugs him forcefully to his chest. Scorpius stiffens slightly, definitely unused to such treatment from him. “Merlin, son! You scared me to death!”

“Father,” he says in a whisper, and he finally hugs him back, forcefully and with abandon.

Ginny and Lily are crying in each other’s arms, repeating only “Mum” and “Lily”, while two blond children are already running around the place as if they had just been roused from their afternoon nap, and their parents are talking amiably with Lovegood.

“It’s good to see you, Father,” whispers Scorpius.

“It’s good to see you, too, Scorpius.” Draco releases him and steps back, holding his hands he looks at him concerned. “Can you stand? Can you walk?”

“I think,” he replies before pushing himself upright. He swings his legs over the block and finally stands. His first steps are unsure, but Draco guides him and he is quick to regain his pace.

“Oh, God! I can’t believe it,” says Draco, his voice dangerously close to tears. “I cannot believe it.”

“Me neither,” replies Scorpius with a grin. “Thank you.”

Draco shakes his head, he wants to tell him that he is the one who has to thank him, but that doesn’t even make sense. Instead, he just stares as Lily and Ginny throws themselves at Scorpius, hugging him forcefully.

“Lily!” exclaims Scorpius, hugging her back. “Mrs Potter!”

“Oh, Scorpius,” says Ginny, kissing his forehead. “I’m so happy to see you!”

“Me, too, Mrs Potter,” he replies happily. “We were that ready to become Yeti’s food, right Lily?”

Lily nods. “God, _that_ ready.”

Suddenly, Scorpius turns towards Draco and steps back from Lily, looking slightly embarrassed. “Father, this is… this is my…”

“He knows,” says Ginny calmly.

Draco looks at the blushing young lady, the spitting image of Ginny when she was younger. He smiles at her and stretches his hand for her to shake. “Miss Potter,” he says. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.” He glances at Ginny and adds, “Your mother told me everything about you.”

A beautiful smile paints on her face as she shakes his hand. “It’s a pleasure for me, too,” she grins.

Scorpius is smiling, too. He looks happier than Draco has ever seen him in a long time. Which is weird since the boy has been trapped in a block of ice for more than two weeks.

Finally, the Scamanders join them, Xenophilius hugs Lily and Scorpius; Ginny embraces Luna and then the twins. Rolf squeezes Draco more tightly than Draco would like, then the gangly man hugs Ginny, while Luna clasps her arms around Draco’s neck. Finally, the twins throw themselves at Draco’s waist and squeeze him more powerfully than two children should be able to do.

Nevertheless, there’s an euphoric feeling that’s spreading through Draco’s head, and he blames the joy of having found Scorpius and Lily alive for his lack of desire of snapping at all those people to keep their hands off him. Au contraire, he’s glad they’re all over him and he’s glad they’re showering him love and gratitude for having saved them.

He can’t stop smiling and laughing happily every time someone says something jolly or pats his shoulder like they’re old friends.

“Soooooo,” says one of the twins to Draco.

“Soooooo,” echoes the other.

“Have you seen—”

“—the Yetis—”

“—with the white fur?”

“Aren’t they—”

“—gigantic?”

Draco furrows his brow slightly, as he lowers his head to their level. “Have we seen what?” he asks.

“The white-white Yetis,” repeats one of them, rolling his eyes as if he’s talking to an old person who doesn’t understand much anymore.

Ginny pats his head. “You mean the Yeti, Lorcan.”

“No, no,” says Scorpius seriously. “He means the Yetis.”

Draco looks at Ginny, who glances back at him with eyes wide.

“Yetis?” he mutters.

“Oh, yes,” says Luna lightly. “There are two of them, but the female is rather small, isn’t she, Rolf?”

“No taller than me,” he agrees.

Draco looks at him. He’s probably six-foot-tall.

Suddenly, Lily lets out a loud groan. “Oh, Mum, I can’t find my wand anywhere. I think I lost it when they took us, I wish—”

“Oh, God, Lily, we have everything with us. Good thing you reminded me,” says Ginny as she proceeds to open her backpack and hand her daughter her wand and a wrinkled jumper. Draco does the same with Scorpius and soon all adults have their wands in their hands, a Head-Bubble Charm around their noses and mouths, and warm clothes on. Ginny and Luna take care of the children then, wrapping them in a Heating Charm and covering their faces behind a bubble that doesn’t do much to sedate their tittle-tattle.

“So?” asks Draco. “Shall we go, or do you want to stay here and take commemorative pictures?”

“We’ve already done that, thank you, Draco,” says Loony gently.

“Oh, yes, I’ve developed them, Luna my lovely. You’re quite the photographer,” says Lovegood.

Loony Lovegood smiles at her father. “Scorpius took most of them, and some Lysander, too,” she replies. “They’re good, aren’t they?”

“Wonderful,” says Lovegood seriously.

“Okay, can we talk about this later? In Gorakshep, maybe?” says Ginny agitatedly. “We really need to—”

Her sentence is truncated by a loud growl coming from the entrance of the lair, and they all turn to look in that direction, wands in front of them and eyes so wide Draco feels like his are going to pop out of his skull.

“Blimey,” mutters Ginny.

“Bloody sodding hell,” growls Draco as he looks at two massive beasts.

The Yetis. Yes, definitely plural.

As they step forward, the creatures brush against the tall ceiling with their egg-shaped heads. They are covered in the purest white fur from head to toe; their eyes are as red as Ginny’s hair, and their feet and hands are ridiculously big compared to their limbs. The Yetis are staring at the humans, and Draco has the distinct feeling that they are not happy, even though most of their faces are hidden by fur and he isn’t an expert in fantastic beasts’ mood swings, anyway.

He raises his wand. “Stay behind me, Scorpius,” he says, grasping his son’s arm and pushing him behind himself. “I’m going to blow them up.”

“No!” says Scamander, hurrying to his side. “You can’t hurt them!”

Draco glances haughtily at him before reverting his eyes on the two beasts. They’re just standing there, apparently waiting for something, and it’s unnerving. “Oh, yeah? Look at me as I do it, Scamander,” he growls.

“No! I mean, you obviously _can_ hurt them, but you shouldn’t!”

Draco glares at him, now. “Well, keep looking at me,” he snaps. “Because if these things get any closer to us, I’m going to bring them down one by one.”

“They’re an endangered species!” gasps Scamander, blue eyes wide.

Draco narrows his eyes. “If you don’t shut up, you’re going to be an endangered species,” he hisses.

“But—”

Luckily – or maybe not – the Yetis cut off whatever other idiocy Scamander is about to say. The bigger one lets out a loud grunt first, then throws his head back and roars like a lion, spit and pieces of putrefied meat flying out of his mouth and towards them.

The cave shakes and Draco can hear whines and scared yelps at his back.

“I think,” says Loony Lovegood calmly, “I’m not sure, but I think that means that he’s about to attack us.”

“You don’t say!” hisses Ginny, voice edgy.

The Yeti closes his mouth and snaps his jaw threateningly, showing his teeth, which are yellow and sharp. Then he stretches his furry arms and places his big hands on the walls at his sides. He seems to gain momentum and once all of his body is tense and ready, he jumps forward.

At first, it feels like he’s launching himself towards them in some sort of slow motion movement, like a magical picture that has been poorly developed by an incompetent photographer. In reality, Draco knows that it’s him the one who is slow to catch up with what’s about to happen to them. When he does, though, his eyes widen, he twirls his wand in an undefined movement, and shouts, “ _Stupefy_!” before throwing himself out of the way.

Other spells are fired as well, and the others scatter quickly around the cave, hiding behind blocks and piles of corpses as they throw themselves in all directions.

The Yeti is hit more than once, but apart from a dazed expression when a spell smashes against his chest, he doesn’t look hurt and he certainly doesn’t seem to be on the verge of collapsing like a human or a smaller beast would do.

“Shit,” mutters Draco, looking around himself. Scorpius is nearby with one of the twins in his arms; they are hiding behind a block of ice. Lily is crouching near her mother; the other Scamanders and Lovegood are somewhere on the other side of the room.

The Yeti seems to stop again; he turns and looks around himself as he pants loudly, clouds of mephitic breath puffing out of his mouth as he does. At least these beasts are not too fast, nor do they seem particularly intelligent. However, a sudden growl at Draco’s back reminds him that now they have Yetis on both sides of the cave.

After all, they might be a bit intelligent.

“Oh, by the way, they don’t like fire,” Loony Lovegood says, her voice loud enough to be heard by everybody. “They’re scared of it.”

“Why don’t you wait a bit longer to tell us?” snaps Draco heatedly.

“Hey,” Scamander snaps back. “To be fair to my wife, that’s in my grandfather’s book. And if you’ve been to Hogwarts you should have studied it and known it without us telling you.”

“Rolf, I don’t remember Draco being particularly good in Care of Magical Creatures,” points out Loony seriously. “It’s not his fault; he didn’t like the Professor very much.”

“You know what I was good at?” snaps Draco. “Unforgivable Curses. Do you want me to demonstrate?”

“Father,” groans Scorpius, squeezing the child to his chest as he tries to cover his ears.

Draco’s face darkens. “I’m talking about the Yeti,” he lies in a grumble.

“Shall we use the Fiendfyre?” asks Ginny nervously. “That will scare them alright.”

“And melt the ice dome?” points out Scorpius. “It’ll collapse on our heads.”

“Why are they so still?” asks Lily, her voice high-pitched with fear. “Are they…”

“I think they are,” mutters Scorpius.

“Doing what?” asks Draco, looking from the big one standing on one end to the other one in front of the gallery.

“Communicating,” replies Scamander. “Mind communication, very advanced. That’s why I think they should be considered beings and not beasts.”

“Yes, and I think you should be put in the Janus Thickey Ward,” grunts Draco.

“Draco!”

“What?” he snaps at Ginny.

“Think of something,” she exhorts him. “We have to get to the gallery; it’s the only exit. We need to move the female from the passage.”

“We can’t all focus on her,” points out Lily. “The other one will be on us as soon as they’re done communicating.”

Draco looks from one Yeti to the other. They look like statues now, their eyes glazed over, their breath slowed down; but this state might end any minute, and Draco is sure that it will as soon as they start firing spells again. “What the heck are they communicating about anyway?” asks Draco nervously.

“Oh, you know, the most efficient way to get to us, I reckon,” replies Loony Lovegood. “Fascinating, isn’t it?”

“And why aren’t we doing the same thing?” he snaps. He has had quite enough of that chitchat. “Scamander, you and I will take care of the big one,” he finally says. “Everybody else, focus on the smaller one. Chase him—”

“Her,” Scamander corrects him.

“Her,” he grumbles. “Chase _her_ away from the entrance, and when the passage is clear, run!”

“And then?” asks Lily, her voice tense with fear.

“Then don’t stop until you’re safe,” grunts Draco. “On the count of three. One.”

“Draco, when you say taking care…”

“Two.”

“Because I don’t think…”

“Three! _Incendio_!” Draco jumps up from behind the block and so does Scamander from the other side of the cave. Everybody else does the same, but they run towards the female.

The male snaps out from his stupor. He blinks, looks fearfully in the direction of the flames that come out of Draco’s wand, and lets out a howl. He manages to duck though, and then jumps back behind a block and growls loud and angry.

“Wonderful,” cheers Scamander. “And he’s still alive and well, congratulations, Draco.”

“Shut up, Scamander,” grunts Draco. He tries to focus on how many spells he knows that generate fire. Not enough, he really should have paid more attention in class.

The beast lets out another roar and then jumps up again, landing on his gigantic feet between the two of them. For a moment, he can’t decide which wizard he wants to attack first, but when Draco fires another spell, the Yeti seems to come to the conclusion that _he_ is the first one he wants to kill.

“Cast a spell, Scamander!” cries Draco as the Yeti launches himself at him. “Cast something!”

Draco doesn’t even know what spells he’s firing, anymore, he doesn’t have time to think about them or say them out loud. And none of them seems effective enough to even slow down the Yeti, let alone hurt him in any way.

Draco leaps over the half-melted block containing an old man – a wrinkled arm is sticking out of it – but before he can hide behind the ice, a strong hand closes around his ankle and pulls him back up in the air, dangling him upside down like a Doxy hanging on a chandelier. Draco’s head bangs against the block of ice as the Yeti brings him up to his eye level and roars in his face.

He tries to point his wand at the Yeti, but the hand around his ankle squeezes and, for a moment, there are spots before his eyes. “Fire, Scamander!” he shouts as he is tossed right and left like a dead hare in the hands of a careless hunter. He is distracted when he notices that, from that position, he manages to see that the others are doing a far better job than they are with the female beast.

Scorpius’s arms are latched onto the beast’s neck, while Ginny and Lily’s spells are slowing her down. Loony Lovegood seems more interested in saving her children rather than fighting, but Draco can’t blame her. Xenophilius looks rather worried that the female might get seriously hurt, and Draco just hopes that the Yeti will knock him out so he can stop talking rubbish and distracting the others.

“Scamander!” snaps Draco as his head hits a wall for the third time. “Do something!”

“I’m trying to think what spell to use!” Scamander snaps back as he jumps away from the Yeti’s free hand. “Not easy, you keep him busy! Oh, that rhymes…”

“Scamander! Use the Fire-Making Spell, you idiot!”

“That will hurt him irreparably,” points out Scamander, ducking as the Yeti tries to grab him. Is it bad of Draco to hope that the Yeti will catch him and kill him? “We need something that will make him harmless without injuring him!”

“If you don’t do something, I am going to injure _you_ , Scamander,” snaps Draco as he tries to kick at the Yeti’s face with his free foot. The Yeti crushes his ankle in his fingers, though and Draco swears that he hears something creaking. “Bloody hell!”

“I got it! I got it!” he finally screams. “ _Locomotor Wibbly_!”

The Yeti lets out a grunt as the spell hits him, and Draco feels the beast waver slightly. It lasts only a moment, though, and then he’s angrier than before.

“Something stronger!” screams Draco as he’s flapped right and left.

“ _Levicorpus_! _Mobilicorpus_!”

The Yeti is lifted abruptly from the ground and Draco falls on the hard stones as the creature is turned upside down.

“Ah!” cries Scamander happily. “Look at that, completely safe for the Yeti and—argh!”

Draco twists his head around to look at Scamander: he’s lying on his back, his wand lost somewhere amongst the ice blocks, his hand is massaging his head.

“What happened?” screams Draco. “Scamander, what—No!”

The Yeti lands unceremoniously on the ground, he shakes his head as if to clear it, and when he notices the disoriented wizard a few feet from him, he growls loudly and finally stands on unstable legs and makes his way towards him.

Draco doesn’t have a plan nor does he know what he should, but he clutches his wand in his hand and hurls himself at the beast, letting out a feral shout. He lands on the back of the creature, grasping his white fur as he starts to climb up towards his head.

“Let him go!” he snarls as he winds his arms around the thick neck. The smell of the beast is so strong and revolting that wisps of it reach Draco’s nostrils even through the bubble, and he gags. “Don’t touch him!”

The Yeti lets out a strangled howl, his strong hands reach for Draco, but Draco’s feet are lodged painfully in his back and his arms are trying to crush the beast’s windpipe. He is not sure he can manage, but when the Yeti yelps next, he sounds like a wounded animal and Draco doubles his efforts.

“Rolf! Get up! Hurry!”

Draco’s head jerks over the shoulder of the creature as he hears Ginny’s voice. He stares as she helps Scamander to his feet and Summons his wand before pushing him in the direction of the entrance.

“Draco!”

He looks at Ginny as she looks back at him, her face tremendously worried.

“Go!” he shouts. “Just go, don’t—”

“Draco! No!”

Everything happens in a matter of seconds. One moment he is clutched to the Yeti’s neck and, the next, he’s falling back towards the ground with the beast on top of him. He scrunches his eyes up, bracing himself for the harsh impact with the rocks.

It never comes.

“ _Immobulus!_ ”

The Yeti’s body freezes bare inches from the ground, then a hand closes on his upper arm, and someone pulls at him.

“Move, Draco!” cries Ginny. “It’s not going to last! We need to go! Move!”

It takes him a fistful of seconds to understand what she is saying but, when he does, he opens his eyes and finally looks at Ginny’s dishevelled face as she tries to drag him away from under the creature.

“Move! He’s falling! He’s falling!” she cries desperately, and Draco finally does.

He kicks the Yeti in the kidneys and slides out from underneath the beast the moment he collapses on the ground with a loud, angry growl.

Ginny helps him clumsily to his feet, they stumble a couple of times; his wand rolls away, but Ginny is quick to Summon it back to him with her own.

They run like Draco can’t remember ever running before. Ginny’s hand is clasped tightly around his, and they slide on the melted ice that now covers most of the ground as they make their way towards the passageway.

They pass the supine body of the female Yeti. Draco doubts his companions had the heart to kill her, but she doesn’t look like she’ll be able to get up any time soon and that’s good enough for him.

At their backs, the male lets out a loud growl that shatters the ice blocks around them into dangerous shards. Ginny screams and tries to protect her face from the fragments that bombard them like thousands transparent needles. They don’t stop, though. The walls of the cave quake, and the ice dome seems to start to crumble.

Then heavy steps start to follow them.

“Faster!” cries Ginny out of breath. “Faster, Draco!”

He listens to her. Merlin, help him, he does. He overtakes Ginny and now he is the one who’s dragging her along, through the passageway, into the gallery.

The Yeti is hot on their heels, and Draco’s whole world is reduced to sounds: his heartbeat in his temples, Ginny’s gasping behind him, the Yeti’s loud steps and his angry yowling. Around him, everything is white and blurry, but there’s only one way and safety is at the end of it.

And then he sees it: the light is faint at the end of the tunnel, but that’s the exit. He can’t be wrong. There are screams coming from beyond it, too. “Father!” and “Mum!” are the loudest, but everybody is calling their names.

“Run!” he pants. “Run, Ginny!”

She squeezes his hand. “We have to jump,” she gasps. “The bubbles will—Nooo!”

Draco slides on the floor as he tries to stop. Ginny’s hand has been torn from his and his heart is in his throat as he turns to look for her.

The Yeti has his ginormous hand around her ankle, pinning her to the ground, and no matter how much Ginny kicks him with her legs, he is not letting her go. She tries to grab the rocks on the floor and push herself forward to reach her wand, but the Yeti drags her back.

“ _Stupefy_!” screams Draco, pointing his wand at the Yeti’s face.

The creature cries out, he brings a hand to his head, and Ginny jumps at the chance to kick him in the throat.

The Yeti finally lets her go, howling in pain.

“Go!” screams Draco. “Now!”

He is the one who pushes her forward, now. The exit is just there, only a few feet from them, and all they have to do is hurling themselves out of it and hope that their companions will have the alacrity of catching them in mid-air with a Levitation Charm.

The cold air of the Himalayas hits Draco’s face; there’s snow underneath his feet now, and he finally sees the stars up in the sky.

“Now!” cries Ginny.

He tries to. Merlin, help him, he does! But a gigantic hand slaps him so hard that his head slams against the cold wall of the gallery. The bubble burst and the mephitic smell of the creature and his many killings fill Draco’s nostrils.

“No!” screams Ginny. “No! Wait! Don’t!”

Draco looks at her. His eyesight is blurry, but she looks like she’s flying in mid-air. She’s gesturing so frantically, though, that he’s afraid that she’ll manage to break the spell and plummet at the foot of the wall.

“Draco! No!” But she’s already disappeared from his sight.

The Yeti growls again, then his hand closes around Draco’s neck and squeezes.

Draco can’t breathe anymore; he looks at the angry face of the beast. It’s only inches away from his own and he sees the bruise left by his spell. He grits his teeth and raises his wand against the Yeti’s nose.

All that spurs from it are red sparkles. They don’t hurt the beast, they don’t even scare him, but they seem to anger him beyond reason.

He open his mouth and snarls in Draco’s face.

Then he raises him over his head and draws his arm back.

He throws Draco with all his strength, as if he is a broken toy that the creature doesn’t want anymore. 

Draco’s back slams against the wall of the gallery, then he falls to the ground. But his feet are dangling in the air, now, and Draco would rather plummet to death than become Yeti’s food.

He doesn’t even open his eyes; he pushes himself off the edge.

And then everything goes black.

There’s something small, but heavy, pressing over Draco’s ribcage and his lower abdomen. They’re like two iron sticks. They’re warm and slightly bent and they follow the curve of his torso as he breathes. They’re also incredibly uncomfortable and Draco’s hand tries to grab one of them to move it away from his body.

He furrows his brow in confusion when he closes his fingers around something that feels soft and hot. He runs his fingers up and down the stick, and someone groans at his side, tightening the other stick over his torso to make him stop before settling down again next to him.

He brings his other hand to his face and rubs his eyes vigorously, then flutters his eyelashes open and turns towards the body that is pressed against his side and his jaw slacks.

“He was crying outside Lily and Scorpius’ door. He wouldn’t settle even in my arms, so I laid him down with you. Hope you don’t mind,” says Ginny. She’s sitting on a chair next to Draco’s bed, looking outrageously beautiful without a trace of worry on her face.

“Which one is he?” asks Draco, his voice raspy.

“Lysander,” she replies simply as the boy stirs slightly next to him. He’s wearing a funny looking jumper, probably one of Ginny’s mother’s creations, heavy mountain socks, and a pair of underpants covered in moving Snitches. The legs, of which one is slumped over Draco’s abdomen, are naked. He’s fast asleep and smells of milk and those sweets that they were offered the first day they arrived in Nepal.

“Why was he crying?” asks Draco, looking back up at her.

Ginny rolls her eyes half-heartedly. “They forgot to cast a Silencing Charm,” she says, “and Lysander thought that Scorpius was hurting Lily. At least they did remember to lock the door…”

Draco looks at Ginny, wrinkling his nose. “You look remarkably calm knowing that your daughter is with my son at this very moment,” comments Draco. He feels rather calm, too, really, but if it was his daughter, he probably wouldn’t be.

“I think they want to remedy to the not pregnant thing,” she replies, still very peacefully. “Also, he wants to ask her to marry him, and she wants to say yes.”

“Oh,” is all that Draco can muster. “And what are they waiting for?”

She smiles gently. “They were waiting for you to regain consciousness.”

“Right,” he says. He lets his head sink back into the pillow, moving his chin away from the unruly blond hair that his tickling his jaw. “What…”

“Your Bubble Head Charm burst right before you jumped from Lhotse Wall,” she explains, “and without the oxygen you lost consciousness. Rolf and Scorpius carried you for most of the way, running, because we were sure they were following us. And when we reached 19,000 feet we decided to take a chance and Apparate back to Gorakshep.” She sighed and shook her head. “We were sick for days,” she goes on, “especially the twins and Lily, but we were all bed-ridden for a while, couldn’t keep down anything and had such strong migraines that I thought my head was going to explode.” She smiles. “Then we were all worried about you. You’ve been unconscious for five days, Rolf was inconsolable, he thought he had killed you with his fear of hurting the Yeti, and Scorpius and Lily wouldn’t leave your bedside for days.”

Draco can’t help feeling content to have been at the receiving end of such attentions. In fact, he smiles at the thought of people watching over his unconscious body.

“Lorcan and Lysander tried to help as well,” she adds. “Please, don’t get angry when you find the bruises.” She smiles apologetically. “They were trying to wake you up the other day, while we were all having lunch downstairs…”

Draco glances at her askew. “I won’t scream at them,” he mutters, “too much…”

“Luna and Xenophilius looked after you as well,” she says. “They tried to feed you some local potions, but Scorpius wasn’t convinced. Everybody was fussing over you.”

“You, too?” he asks in a whisper. He doesn’t know why it’s so important that she did fuss over him, too, but it is.

She smiles and stands from the chair; she perches over the child at Draco’s side and closes her eyes as she lowers her head. “I fussed the most,” she whispers before kissing him gently on his lips.

Draco kisses her back, but it feels different from their previous effusions. This isn’t desperate, this isn’t consoling, this isn’t suspended in some sort of alternate reality. This is calm and grateful and gentle.

She smiles against his lips and tilts her head back. She looks down at him and then withdraws, sitting slowly back down on the chair. “Harry is arriving tomorrow,” she announces, “with our sons.”

“I see.”

“And with Astoria.”

Draco furrows his brow. “You’re joking.”

She shakes her head. “They left together,” she explains. “Astoria is being a bit fussy about the accommodations along the way, but Harry wrote and said that apart from that she’s being remarkably good with the trek.” She smiles. “She’s looking forward to seeing you.”

“Now I know you’re joking.”

Ginny smiles and opens her mouth to reply something, but a knock on the door makes Lysander stir at Draco’s side and Ginny’s attention shifts towards the door. “Come in.”

The door creaks open and Scorpius, handsome in a jumper with a bright “S” embroidered on the front and tousled hair, walks in, hand in hand with Lily.

“Father!” he whispers in surprise when he notices that he’s awake.

Lily’s eyes open wide as she lets out a little scream of joy and throws herself at Draco. “Oh, Mr Malfoy!” She seems to sob as she hugs his neck. “You’re awake!”

Lysander is roused from his slumber, too, but he’s too happy to see that Lily is there to even notice that Draco is conscious.

“Lily, he’s still weak,” says Ginny half-heartedly. “Lysander, no, don’t kneel there, you’re hurting Uncle Draco.”

Draco pats both heads, cringes at the “uncle”, and finally looks at Scorpius. He is smiling at him, and suddenly Draco feels rather at peace, as he hasn’t felt in quite a long time.

He is alive. Scorpius is alive. Ginny is alive. Lily is alive. Even the fact that Xenophilius and his queer family are alive fills Draco with indescribable joy.

He suddenly remembers the monk at Tengboche telling him about Buddha and the moment he found enlightenment. He wonders if the founder of one of the main religions in the world felt as blissful as Draco does at this very moment.

But Draco hasn’t won Saṃsāra.

No. Draco has died many times since he’s started his journey: in the river, at the foot of Lothse Wall, in Ginny’s arms, night after night.

But he’s always come back, time after time, stronger and wiser.

And now he’s ready for his new life.

And he knows that all will be well.


End file.
